Sunday, February 24, 2008 Bodega loses P400T in heist
SIX men robbed a warehouse in Barangay Gun-ob, Lapu-Lapu City yesterday morning, scampering off with P300,000 in cash and P100,000 worth of jewelry and mobile phones.
There was no security guard to man the compound’s steel gate, and the culprits calmly waltzed into the property.
Although no shots were fired, one of the robbers smacked the head of Mildred Cubillan, 45, with the butt of his .45 pistol.
At first, the six men asked for the price of a case of soft drinks. As soon as Cubillan replied, they pulled out their handguns and announced a holdup, demanding that Cubillan open the drawer on her table.
“Mao ra man gihapon (It makes no difference),” Samson and Rosario Go, the warehouse owners, told Theft and Robbery investigator SPO1 Andres Gahi Jr. when asked why they didn’t have a security guard.
Gahi said the couple has long operated a general merchandise business in Lapu-Lapu without ever having one.
“Isugon sab gyud hinoon ning pamilyaha (They’re a pretty brave family),” he said.
The Gos run a store that sells rice, soft drinks and beer at the city’s public market in Barangay Poblacion. The warehouse in Gun-ob serves as their office. It’s also where they entertain wholesale orders for rice and corn.
The P300,000 in cash was their proceeds from last Friday.
Mildred, the Gos’ daughter, had kept the money in her drawer, as she was going to deposit it by Monday.
The robbers arrived on board a white taxi around 9 a.m. and left in less than 10 minutes.
The taxi was parked in front of the gate to block the view from the outside. Five of them went in, leaving their sixth companion behind the taxi’s wheel.
Gahi said that when the robbers announced a robbery they ordered Mildred, her husband Randy, parents Samson and Rosario and their five workers to stay in the corner.
They then asked Mildred to open the drawers of the three tables.
But because Mildred only had a key for her table, the robbers failed to get the money in the two other tables.
“One of the robbers looked anxious. He was telling his companions to hurry,” Gahi said in Cebuano.
Before leaving, they cut the telephone cord of the two landlines of the warehouse and took the necklaces of Randy and Rosario, and Mildred’s mobile phone.
Gahi said they immediately set up a checkpoint at the two Mactan-Mandaue bridges when they were alerted about the robbery, to no avail.
Last January, two men clad in police intern uniforms and armed with .45 pistols took off with P1.5 million from the Mactan Rural Bank in Barangay Basak.
The incident shocked city officials because it was the first bank robbery since Arturo Radaza became mayor in 2002 and Supt. Louie Oppus assumed as police chief in December 2003.
There is nothing to link the two incidents, but police are convinced they were perpetrated by professionals. (AIV)
