While ISIS has claimed responsibility for the bombing via its website, the New York Times reported that the Philippine national security adviser, Hermogenes Esperon, implied that the bombings were likely the work of rebels affiliated with Abu Sayyaf, a separatist militia with a stronghold in Jolo that has been excluded from the current peace process.

The country’s police chief, Oscar Albayalde, suggested that Abu Sayyaf was the prime suspect in an interview with DZMM radio. “They want to show force and sow chaos,” he said.

Security officials have now targeted a possible suspect, a man known under the alias Kamah, who is a member of the Abu Sayyaf Group and the brother of fallen bandit leader Surakah Ingog, who was an alleged bomb maker killed in Sulu last August.

Kamah can be seen in the videos provided by Rappler reaching out his hand with a small item before the second explosion occurred. He may have detonated the two improvised explosive devices using the item in his hand, before he ran away, according to Western Mindanao Command spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gerry Besana.

In response to the tragedy, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines issued a pastoral statement, “The recent bombing of the cathedral of Jolo where scores of people were killed and several more were injured is a further evidence to the cycle of hate that is destroying the moral fabric of our country.”

Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles also told reporters, “Such incident is very sad, very tragic – almost difficult to imagine that man can do that to his fellow brothers and sisters, but yet as believers, as Catholics, we must go back to our faith, look inside our hearts [for] how to respond to this evil deed…with good. That is the strength of our faith in this situation especially it’s a Catholic cathedral that was bombed.”

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