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Tuesday, July 23, 2002
Bank guard killed in ambush-robbery
By Garry Cabotaje with Charmaine Y. Rodriguez & Aledel A. Gonzalez
SIX masked robbers, armed with M-16 Armalite rifles, yesterday shot dead a bank guard and ran off with a steel box, containing mostly coins for loose change, in another broad daylight robbery in Cebu City.
Two women, employees of a shop inside SM City mall, were also wounded during the shooting.
Mall guards didn’t have a chance to fire back. One of them was even stripped by the robbers of his service firearm.
Police could not yet get the exact amount that was taken. But a bank employee said it could be about P150,000.
In less than five minutes, the robbery was over. The armed suspects quickly boarded their getaway vehicle–-a white L-300 van (PJU 876)–-and sped off towards Mandaue City, passing by Makro, a bulk shopping center, and the North Bus Terminal.
An Armalite-toting robber casually opened the SM parking lot back gate before their vehicle sped away, witnesses said.
The suspects also fired shots into the air, breaking the mall’s glass window.
A taxi driver, who happened to be in Mandaue City, positively identified one of the robbers as convict Riel Bautista, an escapee of the Cebu City jail.
Eddie Fernandez was shown a photo of Bautista, whom he saw getting off the vehicle that was found with its engine still running in Jimenez compound in Mandaue.
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña offered a P50,000 reward to those who could give information leading to the arrest of the suspects.
However, the mayor criticized the bank for using only an L300 van, instead of an armored vehicle, describing it as “reckless.”
Police Regional Office 7 Chief Avelino Razon Jr. ordered the Cebu City Police Office to explain why there were no policemen roving SM before the mall opened at 10 a.m.
He said policemen are supposed to be deployed in shopping malls before they open for business in the morning.
Even with the identity of Bautista, Senior Supt. Augusto Marquez, PNP Regional Intelligence and Investigation Division 7, said they are monitoring three notorious robbery gangs in Ozamiz City, Surigao City and Cebu.
The police suspected the same group responsible for the P2-million robbery last April 9 of a Rural Bank of Subang-daku van. The heist was pulled off as the bank was leaving White Gold Club at the North Reclamation Area.
Blood spilled yesterday at SM City after one of the robbers fire shots, hitting Erwin Berangel, a security guard of Pioneer Detective and Security Agency.
Berangel was one of two escorts of a China Bank L-300 van (GLD 608) that parked right at SM City mall’s back door or entrance No. 8.
A slug of an M-16 rifle reportedly pierced his neck, causing his death.
Jade Saranillo and Beverly Bernel, both employees of RCC Emergency Touch, were also reportedly hit in the legs and knees. They were rushed to the Perpetual Succour Hospital.
A female German national was also injured when she panicked upon hearing the shots.
Berangel and co-guard Lito Miñoza and teller Sherlyn Uy had just withdrawn the money from China Bank SM City-branch for delivery of the bank’s clients who needed coins and paper bills for loose change yesterday.
Berangel had positioned himself at the van’s rear door while Miñoza was already
pulling a cart, bearing the safety box, on the sidewalk’s gutter when successive shots rang out at 9:20 a.m.
“My back was turned as I was about to pull the cart. When I heard the gunfire, I immediately ducked,” Miñoza told investigators at the crime scene.
The first burst of gunfire immediately hit Berangel while Miñoza and Uy managed to run back to the mall’s basement and China Bank office, respectively, for safety.
The bullets punctured the van’s rear window and body and mid-window on the right side. The mall’s glass door was also hit by gunshots.
SM City guard Consorcio Cenabre said they could not fire back as they were also being shot at by the robbers.
City Councilor Danilo Fernan, also SM building administrator, said the robbers grabbed the service firearm of one of their guards.
A combined police team set off on a hot pursuit upon learning that the six robbers were seen alighting from their getaway vehicle at an open lot along Cuizon St., Mandaue City.
They reached as far as Barangays Paknaan and Labogon but failed to find the robbers.
Lawmen also picked up Ireneo Caspe, 24, a driver of S&D trucking, for driving the getaway vehicle and parked it on the roadside leading to Jimenez compound. But Caspe said he had to drive the vehicle as his cargo truck could not get out because it blocked the entrance.
Andrew Jimenez, whose family owns the compound, said that if armed and unidentified men get inside the compound, they would be easily spotted because the residents know each other.
Around 10:30 a.m., he saw the van in the alley and noticed that it was parked in front of an armored van.
He didn’t notice anything suspicious since armored vans are regularly seen at the area.
Susan Alonzo, a cashier of a taxi company, called up the Mandaue police upon seeing the white van bearing plate number PJU 876, which matched the reports on local radio stations.
Found inside the vehicle were one black bonnet mask, several empty mineral bottles and plastic bags.
Fernan believed that the robbers had closely monitored the daily routine of the China Bank personnel.
After the Scene of Crime Operations team completed gathering evidence, it was business as usual at the mall.
As of yesterday, TRS investigators were still interrogating Miñoza and Cenabre as they did not discount possibility of an inside job.
This is the second bank robbery to hit Cebu City under Acting CCPO Director Josephus Angan’s term, but Osmeña said this will not cost the police chief his post.
“At this point, I don’t look at it as an issue of his capability,” he said.
The mayor instead said that the police should focus on monitoring robbery and kidnapping syndicates that are trying to operate in Cebu. |
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