Friday, August 24, 2007 PenBank’s loss in robbery P2.5M
THE Mandaue City Police Office (MCPO) will file today robbery charges against Rodulfo Atega and John Does for the Peninsula Rural Bank Inc. heist last Tuesday.
Police did not specify the number of unidentified suspects, but it was established that Atega and a companion went inside the bank and run off with P2.5 million.
Four other persons were seen outside the bank on S.B. Cabahug St. in Ibabao and may been the lookouts.
MCPO Investigation and Intelligence Chief Ramon Villar only named Atega, who was identified by bank employees from the police rogue’s gallery.
Police also had an artist sketch of the two who went inside the bank and one of them closely resembled Atega. Atega, police said, is a member of Bohol robbery group, now operating here in Metro Cebu.
The two men, carrying .45 pistols with silencers, took the P2.5 million from the teller’s table and vault and fled on a motorcycle.
In a separate interview, Bohol Provincial Police Office Director Edgardo Inking resents the tag Bohol robbery group, saying it was unfair to the residents of the province.
“I find it unnecessary to call them the Bohol Robbery Group. They are carrying the name of the province. While it’s true some of them live here, it has a negative connotation,” he told Sun.Star Cebu yesterday.
Peace loving
Senior Supt. Ingking said that when they announced suspects in a crime, they only mention the names and not where they are from.
“There is no way that the people of Bohol will provide safety for them. We are a peace-loving people,” Ingking, who is also a Boholano, said.
He explained that by using the name Bohol for a robbery group, others might think that people from the Province are robbers.
After informing Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Director Silverio Alarcio Jr., Alarcio summoned Cebu City Police Office Director Patrocinio Comendador and told him about Ingking’s appeal.
Alarcio and Comen-dador were in Bohol yesterday to attend the Local Peace and Security Assembly.
To this, Comendador said they will now refer to the group led by Casimero “Meloy” Garcia is the Garcia Robbery Group.
Garcia is tagged as the leader of the group reportedly responsible for the heist pulled on the La Nueva Supermart in Cebu City and the Peninsula Rural Bank in Mandaue City recently.
Ingking said Garcia’s group is also responsible for some robberies in Bohol and that they are also hunting them down because they have a pending warrant of arrest for a robbery case.
He explained that Garcia and his band used to be part of a bigger robbery gang that operated in Manila.
He believes they separated from the bigger group when their names got “too hot” in Manila and moved their operations to Central Visayas.
Driver
Garcia hails from the town of San Miguel, Bohol.
In last Tuesday’s Penbank robbery, so far investigators got the affidavits of bank manager Marvin Soco, security guard Jovelo Jumawan and the driver Ronald Ty.
The driver took the guard’s place when the latter went to the comfort room.
That was when the second robber entered the bank and announced a holdup.
Villar said they will get today the affidavits of female bank tellers, the only document needed for them to file charges.
Soco told the police that he cannot ask all his employees to go the police station at the same time as no one will be left to attend to their customers.
Last Tuesday, a man posed as a bank client who wanted to open an account.
Moments later the man’s companion followed him inside and they pulled the heist. (OCP/MEA)
