Wednesday, December 20, 2006 Janitor admits robbing fiscal’s office of guns, grenades By Karlon N. Rama Sun.Star Staff Reporter
A ROBBER broke into the Cebu Provincial Prosecutor’s Office last Friday dawn and stole six pistols and four hand grenades from the evidence room.
But 24-year-old Bryant Baguio, a janitor working at the Palace of Justice, was arrested yesterday, the same day the crime was reported, after owning up the robbery to agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7.
He tested positive for drugs when examined at the NBI laboratory.
That and the fact that the office of the records custodian was not touched made investigators believe that the break-in was a simple case of robbery.
The office of the records custodian is adjacent to the evidence lockup.
The firearms and explosives were all recovered hidden among a pile of corrugated metal sheets and plyboards in a parking lot behind the Palace of Justice behind the Capitol building in Cebu City.
According to the investigators, Baguio may have planned to move the items out over time to avoid detection.
Baguio hails from Guihulngan, Oriental Negros but is temporarily residing in Ward 2, Minglanilla town, Cebu.
He may not have acted alone as the NBI found a print in the crime scene that didn’t match that of Baguio.
Agents were still tracking down a second suspect as of press time.
Baguio’s work, said Administrative Officer Cecil “Boy” Gadrinab, gave him access to the administrative section of the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor, where the evidence lockup is located.
“The incident is a cause for concern,” said Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) Director Vicente Loot.
The pieces of evidence kept in the room are for murder, illegal possession of firearms and rape cases, he said. Drug evidence is stored at the PNP Crime Laboratory. Evidence in the P9.2-million Land Bank robbery case is with the NBI and CPPO, Loot said.
Baguio had gained the trust of the office’s senior staff that he was sometimes allowed to remain inside the office to clean up long after everybody else has left.
“He also comes here on Saturdays to mop the floor,” Gadrinab said.
NBI 7 Director Medardo de Lemos, in an interview, said Baguio became a suspect after one of the security guards at the Palace said he saw Baguio inside the palace grounds past 3 a.m. last Friday.
The robbery was discovered when the evidence custodian, Lyndon Lazarte, reported for work about four hours later.
De Lemos said Baguio failed to report that day. He was next seen at the office only last Monday.
Baguio and all other employees who had access to the administrative section were brought to the NBI headquarters for a polygraph exam.
Baguio cracked when it was his turn before the lie detector machine.
An inspection of the crime scene showed that Baguio gained access to the evidence lockup via the administrative section’s comfort room.
He scaled the wall of the comfort room and detached a portion of the ceiling before crawling and crossing over into a condemned comfort room within the evidence lockup.
After coming down on the other side, he simply opened the condemned room’s door and walked into the lockup, picking whatever he wanted to get.
Then, he opened the main door from inside and walked out.
This isn’t the first time a burglar broke into what are supposed to be secure areas of the agencies inside the Palace of Justice.
Years ago, a thief went inside the records room of the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas. The burglar walked away with a cassette player but no records were touched.
When the anti-graft office transferred to its own building along M. Velez St., Cebu City, the room was taken over and made into the records room of the Regional Trial Court criminal division.
Before that, a man broke into the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor and walked away with then city prosecutor Jose Pedrosa’s pistol.
