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Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Cebu robberies alarm bankers
CEBU CITY -- The robbers in the twin heists on financing firms in Cebu City last Saturday and the P1.75-million Veco robbery last Monday may have been carried out by different persons belonging to one group.
Superintendent Pablo Labra II, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Bureau (CIIB), said Tuesday that the information, though still to be verified, indicates that the group of suspected robber Dindo Ancero and a Mindanao-based robbery gang headed by Ricardo "Jun Halap" Uy may have a hand in the crime.
Labra said there are "persistent" reports of Uy's sightings in Bogo town in northern Cebu, where Ancero was a resident, and in Talisay City.
The swift execution of the robbery on the Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) on M.C. Briones Highway in Mandaue City and the getaway blue motorcycle provided clues that the robbery and the two heists in Cebu City may have been done by the same group, said Mandaue City Police Station 1 Chief Abraham Ocampo.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 will look into the Veco robbery, as the Cebu Bankers Club told Police Regional Office Chief Silverio Alarcio Jr. that it is alarmed over the recent heists.
Mandaue City police officials and Mayor Thadeo Ouano also pointed out security lapses in the Veco office such as the absence of a surveillance camera and alarm system.
Ocampo accompanied Veco security guard Tomas Corpin to the Cebu City Police Office Theft and Robbery Section to look at photos of noted criminals.
Corpin saw one picture of a man with similarities to one of the three robbers.
Ocampo described the robbery as well-planned. "Limpyo kaayo," he said.
At 5:15 p.m. last Monday, three men dressed as Veco field employees forced their way inside the Veco office and ran off with nearly P1.75 million in cash.
They were armed with .45 caliber pistols.
Veco management, through Bingen Mendezona, its vice president for security, asked the NBI 7 to look into the robbery.
Mendezona, in his complaint, said one of the three cashiers in the office left "unusually early" last Monday.
"The robbers did not bother checking the cash register nor bothered to ask. It appeared that they knew where the cash would be at this time," he said, adding that the vault is not visible to people transacting business in the office.
Police Regional Alarcio, in a separate interview, reiterated the need for the community to do its part in policing.
He pointed out that in two of the three recent robberies to hit Metro Cebu, policemen were just standing nearby the establishments but did know that a robbery was in progress because no one sounded an alarm.
"If they (police) aren't informed, they can't do anything," he said.
Alarcio said there have been instances where crimes were prevented or perpetrators neutralized because the community was vigilant and informed the police.
He cited the case of the Cebu City policemen who were able to shoot two suspected robbers because the public alerted them in Mambaling.
Corpin, 56, of Barangay Pandayan, Consolacion, Cebu, will be asked to undergo a lie detector test at the NBI.
He had opened the office's door just a bit to tell a woman that they are already closed. The woman pleaded that she be allowed to pay her bill because her electricity will be cut the next day.
The three armed robbers took this chance to push their way in.
Mandaue City Police Office Director Eduardo Catabas and Mayor Ouano shared the same observations on the lax security at the Veco office.
Catabas said Corpin should not have opened the glass door and instead just signaled to the woman who wanted to make a late payment that the office was already closed.
He also noted that the branch had only one guard.
In a separate interview, Ouano said that as an establishment that collects payments, Veco should have turned over its collections to a bank earlier in the afternoon.
Ouano also said that security alarm systems, although expensive, must be installed in all business establishments.
Veco spokesperson Ethel Natera said there were two guards but during the robbery, the other guard went roving at the substation beside the office.
The Cebu Bankers Club admitted that it is alarmed by the recent robberies in Metro Cebu.
Club president Hermelo Parot, along with fellow officer Edith Tan, paid a courtesy call on Chief Superintendent Alarcio Tuesday morning.
"Everybody should be alarmed by these kinds of things," he told reporters after his meeting with Alarcio.
The club also brought up with the police official some of its concerns regarding security, especially during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit next month.
It asked that some branches of banks be exempted from the four-day holiday on December 11 to 14 because this would lead to the accumulation of cash in different business establishments and make them prime targets of robbers.
Parot said, though, that they still have trust in the police organization.
For his part, Alarcio said there is nothing to be alarmed about yet, as crime statistics show that the robbery incidents for October were lower this year compared with the same period last year.
In 2005, Cebu City recorded 88 robberies while this month, they had only 26.
The Cebu City police are pursuing leads on recent robberies.
Labra said the mode of executions in the heists in Cebu and Mandaue lead him to believe that these were carried out by one group.
In Saturday's robberies on Alano and Sons Finance Corp. on Escario St. and G.A. Countryside Lending Firm along T. Padilla St., two robbers posed as clients, pulled out the heists in about five minutes and fled on motorcycles.
The cartographic sketches of the two suspects in the G.A. Countryside Lending Firm were released Tuesday by the police.
The same mode of execution was also noted in the October 5 robberies of A1 Micro Finance Inc. on Osmeña Blvd. and Asialink Finance Corp. along Gen. Maxilom Ave.
Ancero, who was identified as one of the suspects, was arrested two days later by a joint team of Cebu City and Mandaue City police.
Although the Veco heist was executed in a different manner, Labra said this method was used by Ancero's group when it allegedly robbed the Land Bank of the Philippines branch in Bogo town of P9.4 million in August last year.
Ancero was able to post a P100,000 bond for his bail for the Land Bank robbery. But he is now detained at the Cebu City jail for the October 5 robberies. (AAG/JST/MEA/KNR/Sun.Star Cebu)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Manila.
(November 1, 2006 issue)
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