An April Fools’ Day joke gone wrong might have just cost a man in Caloocan City imprisonment and a hefty fine when he joked about having a bomb in his bag at a mall.
On Sat night, Apr 1, a man named Haroeh Lagat was entering the mall when he “whispered” to a friend that he had explosives in his bag. The security guard checking Lagat’s bag heard the “joke” and immediately called the special response unit of the Caloocan City Police Station.
At this point, Lagat ran and tried to escape, but authorities nabbed him at the Caloocan-Monumento Circle area, according to the report from GMA News Online.
Lagat justified that he only whispered the joke to his friend.
In the same GMA News report, Police Officer 3 Cesar Garcia of the Caloocan City Police said carrying a bomb is never a joking matter.
“‘Wag sabihing biro ‘yang ganyang mga bomba, may mga makakarinig maaaring matakot at magdulot ng stampede,” Garcia said.
(Don’t make jokes about bombs because if someone hears you and get scared, it might cause a stampede.)
Making bomb jokes in public places is a violation of the Presidential Decree 1727 and guilty fools may look at five years’ imprisonment and/or a fine of up to PHP 40,000.
