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Monday, November 17, 2003
Construction worker shot over cellular phone
A CONSTRUCTION worker was critically wounded in the chest after one of five robbers shot him for refusing to give up his cell phone on Osmeña Blvd., Cebu City Saturday night.
Hours later, a taxicab driver was robbed and stabbed in the arm by two men in a secluded area in Cordova town.
In the first incident, mason Rene Fuertes, 23, was sending a text message to a friend when five men, one of them armed with a revolver, confronted him.
“Hand over your cell phone,” the armed man reportedly asked in Cebuano while pointing the gun at him.
Fuertes refused and stepped backward, to run away, but before he could do so, the armed robber shot him in the chest.
Fuerte’s co-worker, Freddie Tubac, 23, was beside Rene during the attack. When Rene fell to the ground, the armed robber hit Tubac’s shoulder with the butt of the revolver.
The five fled on foot, leaving the cell phone behind.
Tubac said they went to Harrison Park past 7 p.m. to watch a concert. They were just a month in Cebu City working on a building at the old site of the GSIS building.
He said Fuertes was shot once when he stepped backward after seeing the robber point a gun at him.
“Modagan unta to si Rene pag-ingon sa tulisan nga kuhaon iyang cell phone (Fuertes was about to run when the robber asked for his cell phone),” Tubac said.
Fuertes is still under observation at the Visayas Community Medical Center Inc. as of 7 p.m. last night.
In the Cordova robbery, Jimmy Tagalog, 45, of Maguikay, Mandaue City, lost his P680 earnings and also got stabbed in his left shoulder yesterday dawn.
SPO1 Eustaquio Sanchez said a bloodied Tagalog came to the station at 1:20 a.m. yesterday and reported that two unidentified men robbed him in Barangay Ibabao.
Cordova policemen immediately rushed to the place and tried running after the two men but failed to find them.
Tagalog, of ECR taxi, told the police that two men rode his cab in Mandaue City and asked to be brought to Barangay Babag II in nearby Lapu-Lapu City.
When they reached the place, however, the two men asked him to bring them to Ibabao, Cordova.
When they reached a secluded part of the road, the two men pointed knives at him and declared a hold-up.
Sanchez said that despite Tagalog’s pleas, the robbers took his hard-earned P680.
Not contented, one of the two men plunged a knife into Tagalog’s right shoulder before leaving.
Tagalog was brought to Lapu-Lapu City District Hospital for treatment.
Sanchez said the victim’s fellow cab drivers tried to pursue but lost the two men, who fled on foot towards Barangay Masulog, Lapu-Lapu City.
He said he remembered that sometime last year, a taxicab driver was also robbed in the same place.
“The place is secluded that’s why the robbers made the vehicle go there,” he said in Cebuano.
In both instances, the robbers took a ride from Mandaue City and asked to be brought to Cordova.
Cordova police are currently trying to identify the two men, saying the incident was just an isolated one. AIV/RHM
(November 17, 2003 issue)
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