Tuesday, May 27, 2008 Tomas dangles reward to police By Rene H. Martel Sun.Star Staff Reporter
CEBU City Mayor Tomas Osmeña offered cash rewards to off-duty policemen who could arrest or kill robbers.
Saying that the recent spate of killings and robberies showed that organized crime groups are active in the city, Osmeña again asked establishments to enroll in the City’s Mobile Alarm Remote System (Mars).
The most recent incident was the robbery on two jewelry stores in Magallanes St. by eight men last Saturday.
An off-duty Regional Mobile Group policeman traded shots with the robbers after they got inside their getaway vehicle.
Two civilians were caught in the crossfire. One of them died hours later.
Osmeña said the City is giving P10,000 to anyone who could identify the robbers. He already asked the police to come up with sketches.
He said he had asked the police to supply the media with pictures of the suspects.
He said off-duty policeman who could arrest robbers will receive P20,000, while those who kill one will get P50,000.
The mayor said that if the RMG policeman, who said he probably hit two of the robbers, can prove that he killed one, he will get P50,000. If the two robbers are dead, then the City will give him P100,000.
The mayor said the reward will dissuade robbers from preying on Cebuanos.
“I’m trying to create a deterrent. That’s what I’m trying to do,” he said.
With the Mars system, he said establishments are better able to alert authorities for quick police response.
The Mars system works by hooking up the subs-criber’s mobile phones to a central system at City Hall. The alarm will reach City Hall in just three seconds.
“We will take steps to reinforce the Mars system, where the different financial establishments or places, which handle daily transactions of cash, will be enrolled for free,” the mayor said.
He said the jewelry store robberies were carried out by a well-funded group, particularly because the robbers were armed with high-powered guns.
“It is organized crime. That operation, to me, cost about half a million pesos. (That is) my rough estimate. So I suspect that what were taken are (worth) somewhere in the
tens of millions (of pesos). It is not just plain theft,” the mayor said.
He said the owners may not be telling all that they lost to the robbers.
“They (robbers) will not target a store unless there is something there that is worth the exercise,” Osmeña said.
He said the robbers could not have been after second-hand watches and some earrings.
On another incident, Osmeña supported the possibility that policemen were involved in the death of lawyer Richard Sison and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (Pdea) 7 agent Priscillano Gingo-yon.
But he said they likely are not Cebu City policemen, particularly in Gingoyon’s case.
The mayor said the Pdea is not in Cebu City, and the policeman believed to be involved in the case is not from the city.
“I think there is a possibility. But we have many good policemen. Just like there are many good mayors. But there are many bad mayors,” he said.
On Sison’s case, he said that if looked through a political perspective, Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza’s “foolishness” has something to do with the killing.
Sison is Radaza’s legal counsel.
But Osmeña said it could not have been that, as the killers would likely choose to attack Radaza and not his lawyer.
