Monday, June 23, 2008 4 suspects charged with P2M La Nueva robbery
ROBBERY with homicide charges have been filed against four men accused of robbing La Nueva Supermart of at least P2 million almost a year ago.
Casimero “Meloy” Garcia, Cresencio “Brutz” Reguya, Danilo Flores and a still unidentified man were charged with stealing P2,291,753 of La Nueva Supermart cash sales from a Metro Bank teller on Aug. 13, 2007. Escort guard Procoro Esguerra died of injuries sustained during the robbery while Medard Rama, another escort guard, was injured.
Witnesses
Five witnesses – including a store employee, a shopper and a vendor – identified the suspects.
Security guard Edgar Adubal said he was driving Metro Bank’s armored van at 11:00 a.m. that day to transport cash from La Nueva Supermart. Inside the van were Metrobank teller Grace Maglangit and escort guards Esguerra and Rama.
Adubal was waiting for the three at the grocery store’s parking lot when he heard successive gunshots. Looking outside, he saw Rama slumped on the ground.
Adubal started to get out of the van but an armed man appeared from behind a gray Toyota Lite Ace van and allegedly fired shots at him.
Shot
According to Maglangit, she had emerged out of La Nueva Supermart flanked by escort guards Esguerra and Rama. She and Esguerra were each carrying a bag that contained the supermart’s cash sales.
She said Rama was shot just as he was about to open the armored van.
Maglangit instantly ran back inside La Nueva, leaving behind the cash bag in her fright. There, she called up the bank to inform her superiors of the robbery.
Esguerro, on the other hand, was shot by one of the robbers. He died in the hospital six days later.
Nestor Impiales, an employee of La Nueva Supermart, was outside the grocery store during the heist. He said that prior to the robbery, he was stockpiling cardboard boxes when two men approached him, offering to sell him a Nokia 3310.
He added that the same men had offered to sell him a Nokia N70 cell phone two months before, which he also refused.
“Out of curiosity”, he said, he asked one of the security guards about the two men’s identities.
The guards identified one of them as Danilo Flores, a security guard who used to work at La Nueva.
Testimonies
Ipmiales then returned to his task until he heard the gunshots. It was then that he saw Flores taking out a gun and shooting Esguerro at the back of his neck.
May Flor Languido was tending her small store near the parking lot of La Nueva when the gunshots got her attention.
She said she ran away to seek protection, but not before she saw the robbers and their Lite Ace van bearing the plate number TGE 779.
Security guard Elmer Ilagan, who was guarding the store’s entrance at the time, said he was about to shoot the robbers when he thought twice, as many of the store’s shoppers were running about the parking lot in confusion. Instead, he called up the police for reinforcements.
The case information for robbery with homicide was filed against the four robbers last June 19. Prosecutor Jose Nathaniel Andal approved the charges and ruled against bail. (KAB)
