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Monday, July 21, 2003
Traffic breach leads to 3 ‘robbers’ arrest
By ALLAN I. VARQUEZ
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
OVERLOADING and the lack of a license plate and helmets led to the arrest yesterday morning of three suspects in at least two mobile phone robberies in Cebu City.
A team led by SPO2 Graciano Tan II was in a Mobile Patrol Group (MPG) car when they spotted a motorcycle with no license plate and with three people on board, all without helmets, at the corner of N. Bacalso and V. Rama Ave. past 10 a.m.
Because the three people violated traffic rules, Tan’s team chased the motorcycle, which turned right on V. Rama Ave.
As the police radioed headquarters about the chase, they were told the three on the motorcycle could be the culprits in some cases of cell phone thefts in Cebu City.
When Roel Abellana, 26, Rommel Letigio and Ronald Caballero, 29, were caught and brought to the MPG headquarters, two men were positive they were the same persons who robbed them of their mobile phones.
But all three, as well as their parents, insisted they were innocent, an MPG source said.
Joselito Cañedo and Bagalay Contaro, 31, went to the MPG headquarters yesterday afternoon to check out the suspects.
Cañedo said he was walking on N. Bacalso Ave. near the Salazar Institute of Technology (SIT) past 9 p.m. Saturday when three men on a motorcycle threatened to shoot him if he refused to give them his mobile phone.
Contaro said he was also walking on N. Bacalso Ave. from work last July 7 when the three suspects threatened him with a gun and took his mobile phone.
SPO2 Edmund Molas confirmed the arrest was by chance, because Tan’s team thought the men they were chasing were merely traffic violators.
Cebu City Ordinance 168 requires helmets of all motorcycle riders. A license plate for every vehicle and a ban on overloading are mandated in Republic Act 4136.
Molas said two other mobile patrol cars joined the chase until they collared the three suspects at the corner of V. Rama and P. del Rosario Ext.
Abellana yielded a fan knife. He and his two companions are currently detained at the MPG headquarters, pending the filing of criminal charges.
(July 21, 2003 issue)
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