Thursday, August 23, 2007 Editorials: Two heists in eight days
WHAT made Thursday’s heist on Peninsula Rural Bank Inc. jarring is not only that it was the second major robbery incident to hit Metro Cebu in a span of just eight days.
It is also that the Mandaue City Police Office (MCPO), based on the testimony of a witness, is pointing to members of the so-called Bohol Robbery Group as the culprits.
In the past, bank robberies done in rapid succession happen only rarely for two reasons: first, these are difficult and risky to implement and, second, robbers respect the capability of the police to respond to major heists.
The popular notion is that after a major operation, robbers evade manhunts by cooling off in areas outside the police’s reach, there to spend their share of the loot.
Manhunt
In the La Nueva robbery, Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) Director Patrocinio Comendador already raised the possibility that members of the Bohol Robbery Group have left Cebu to elude the police dragnet.
CCPO Deputy Director Pablo Labra II, meanwhile, continuously updated reporters on the effort to track the suspects, giving the public the feeling the police somehow knew about the robbers’ whereabouts.
But you have the statement of MCPO Director Alexander Abadinas that members of the same Bohol Robbery Group were behind the Penbank heist.
Twice slapped
While two major heists in a span of eight days committed by different robbery groups can already be considered bad, only one group doing the robbing is worse.
It means that the robbers believe the local police are so incompetent they can do anything they want without worrying about getting arrested or disturbed.
It is possible, though, that either the CCPO or the MCPO did not get its intelligence info right and that the heists were actually done by separate robbery groups.
Still, there is something that should be said about being slapped twice.
Third heist?
Something good may yet come out of the insult, however, as businessmen are starting to stir and the police, hopefully including Police Regional Office officials, are trying to straighten out their act.
A third major robbery in Cebu in less than a month will surely be too much.
