Thursday, September 21, 2006
Bank manager shot to death
By Aledel Gonzalez-Cuizon
CEBU CITY -- Unidentified robbers killed a bank manager when he stopped to fix a flat tire in the rain in Mandaue City’s reclamation area last Tuesday night.
They then fled with the high-end cellular phone, watch and wallet they stole from Narciso Alivio Damole, the 38-year-old manager of the Allied Bank branch along A.C. Cortes Avenue, Mandaue City.
Police were stumped by the absence of witnesses at the crime scene, about 1.7 kilometers from the Cebu International Convention Center.
Damole’s death came 11 days after a moneylender and her secretary were shot dead in Cebu City. Last week, a 19-year-old student was also shot dead when she refused to hand over a borrowed cellular phone to a robber in a jeepney.
“Never before have there been so many PNP personnel in Metro Cebu than now...It’s an irony, nagsunod-sunod na hinuon na ang mga krimen nga labihan daghanang police (The crimes have come one after the other, when we have so many police operatives in town),” said Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia, who chairs the Regional Peace and Order Council.
She asked Police Regional Office 7 Director Silverio Alarcio Jr. to review the shifting and assignments of police personnel, who are in town to prepare for the Asean summit in December, to make them effective.
Shooting
The spate of crimes is “a challenge to all these extra personnel not to serve as decorative pieces, to be posing in the streets as if they were waiting for a photo shoot for a fashion magazine,” the governor added.
Less than 24 hours after the fatal robbery in Mandaue, an ex-convict was shot dead on D. Jakosalem Street in Cebu City.
Ariel Guerrero, 29, was waiting for a jeepney ride when two men on a motorcycle stopped in front of him and pumped bullets from a .45 pistol into Guerrero’s head and stomach.
As with the other vigilante-style attacks that began in late December 2004, the police have yet to find out who killed Guerrero and why.
Homicide investigator PO3 Roger Nedamo said that relatives of Guerrero admitted he had been convicted for possession of illegal drugs, but was released from the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center more than a year ago.
Despite the spate of jeepney and taxi robberies and Tuesday’s killing of a bank manager, Director Alarcio said the crime situation in Cebu is no cause for alarm.
Theft down
Alarcio, in an interview with reporters, Alarcio said this year’s regional index crime statistics from January to August is lower than the crimes recorded in the same period last year.
For robbery cases, there were 982 recorded in 2005, while 864 were reported for the first seven months of this year. Theft, on the other hand, registered 2,024 cases this year, lower by 399 than last year’s figure.
These figures are no comfort for the family of Damole, who never made it home again.
Damole, who was heading to Cebu City, stopped in a lighted area near Aztecs on Ouano Ave. around 9:45 p.m. Tuesday and was changing a tire on his blue Toyota Vios when the robbers struck.
He was shot in the chest and stomach, prompting Mandaue City Police Office Director Eduardo Catabas to believe that Damole might have resisted.
Police recovered two empty shells fired from a .45 pistol and two pieces of live ammunition.
Timing
In an interview Wednesday, Catabas said that people at the vicinity of the crime scene heard the gunshots, but nobody saw the perpetrators.
Catabas revealed that he recognized Damole from the Thursday Club, an organization that meets regularly at a restaurant in Cebu City.
They bumped into each other last March when the police director met with bank executives, regarding the implementation of security measures in their establishments.
Catabas said that the crime scene was well lighted and not secluded. “Naka-timing lang jud ang mga suspects,” he said.
In a separate interview, Inspector Ramon Villar of the MCPO intelligence and investigation division admitted having difficulty in pursuing any lead because there were no witnesses.
However, he assured that the police will be doing all they can to solve the case.
P15T cash
According to initial investigation, Damole came from a meeting in Lapu-Lapu City.
He passed by Allied Bank branch along A. C. Cortes Avenue in Mandaue City to withdraw money and then proceeded to Cebu City.
According to a report by TV Patrol Central Visayas, Damole had withdrawn some P15,000. He reportedly had a Nokia N91 phone.
Narciso last called his wife Shirley, when he asked her if she could handle the catering for the bank’s family day.
One of the police cars in Mandaue City is designated to patrol the reclamation area but at the time of the crime, the car was reportedly at the vicinity of the Cebu International Convention Center.
The crime scene is also patrolled by two policemen between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m.
Damole’s death has prompted Catabas to review the deployment of policemen to crime-prone areas. He will base the deployment on the crime clock, or a record of the hours that crimes usually occur in certain areas. (With AIV, JST & MBG of Sun.Star Cebu)
(September 21, 2006 issue)
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