The University of Santo Tomas said its Manila campus was declared safe on Tuesday morning, October 27, after the school received another bomb threat — the second one this month, according to Philstar.com.
In a statement, the university said authorities had cleared the campus for occupancy and that it was working with the Philippine National Police and other government agencies to investigate the threats, which it said were circulating online. Acting on the advice of law enforcers, UST did not order an evacuation.
The Manila Police District's Station 14 later released a spot report describing how the threat unfolded, Philstar.com reported.
Why it matters
The scare came four days after a similar incident at UST. On October 23, two threatening letters were discovered in separate restrooms in the university's Medicine Building, and police subsequently found no explosives on campus.
For a university that enrolls tens of thousands of students, a repeat threat in the same week puts pressure on school officials and police to show that their response procedures work — and to decide when a warning justifies emptying buildings. The decision not to evacuate on Tuesday will likely draw scrutiny, even as authorities described the threat as unverified.
The case also highlights how quickly threats can spread through social media, and how hard they are to trace once an account disappears.
How the threat reached the university
According to the police spot report cited by Philstar.com, UST Detachment Commander Joseph Badinas and College of Rehabilitation Sciences Acting Dean Donald Manlapaz contacted law enforcement after a member of a college-based organization received a message on Facebook Messenger at about 6 a.m.
The sender, using the account name "TIGER TTIGER," said they had overheard a conversation in a library restroom about plans to set off explosives and carry out a shooting in three university buildings.
The same account then messaged the UST Central Student Council at around 7 a.m. and the Central Commission on Elections at about 7:40 a.m., the report said. The account was deactivated at 7:45 a.m.
Police were sent to the campus at 7:45 a.m., shortly after the third message, and reached the buildings named in the threat by 7:55 a.m. The Manila Police District said the matter is still under investigation.
The university said campus security personnel and law enforcers carried out an assessment before declaring the grounds safe. It did not say whether classes were disrupted.
A pattern of threats and a push for clearer rules
Tuesday's incident is the latest in a series of bomb scares that have unsettled Philippine campuses, and it has renewed calls for a standard response. The Daily Tribune reported that stricter bomb response guidelines are being sought amid the campus scare, while GMA Network and other outlets carried early reports of the alleged threat at UST based on information from the National Capital Region Police Office.
The Varsitarian, UST's student publication, reported that student athletes staying in campus dormitories were marked safe following the threat.
Under the university's account, the decision to keep the campus open rested on police advice rather than on an independent assessment by school officials. That approach places the judgment call with law enforcement, which must weigh the credibility of a message against the cost of an unnecessary shutdown.
For students and staff, the practical questions remain: how threats are verified, who decides whether to evacuate, and how quickly the campus community is told what is happening. Tuesday's timeline — roughly two hours between the first message and police reaching the named buildings — suggests those questions are not academic.
Philstar.com reported that the October 23 incident ended with police finding no explosives after the two letters were found in the Medicine Building restrooms.
What to watch: whether the Manila Police District identifies the person behind the "TIGER TTIGER" account, and whether UST and police formalize clearer rules for future threats.
