Two robbers hit ticketing office, escape with P120T

A ticketing office of Asian Spirit Airline along Archbishop Reyes Avenue, Cebu City, lost P120,000 to two armed robbers yesterday afternoon.

Based on their statements of ticketing agents Geraldine Tampus and Noel Sumira, about 1:30 p.m. yesterday the first robber entered the establishment pretending to be a customer and asked for the ticket price of a Cebu-Manila trip and Cebu-Davao trip.

A minute later, the second robber entered and both men then pulled out pistols with silencers and announced a hold-up. They also told the two they were vigilantes.

One of the robbers then ordered Sumira to open the vault and they took the P120,000 it contained. They missed the P80,000 in Tampus' drawer.

One of them grabbed Tampus' cellular phone, but when she pleaded with him to leave the SIM pack he decided to just return the phone.

Both suspects then boarded a blue motorcycle and escaped.

Deputy TRS Chief P/Insp. Michael Bastes said Sumira told them he suspected they would be robbed since before the incident he saw one of the suspects already sitting on the blue motorcycle in front of their office texting somebody.

Both ticketing agents described the robbers as standing 5'7" tall, one of them had a slight build while the other had a medium build.

Bastes added that the police failed to respond immediately because they only received the alarm 30 minutes after the robbery as the victims first called their manager who was out of the office when it happened. It was the manager who then called the police.

The office has no security guard and apart from the two agents there was no one else there when the robbery took place. - Flor Z. Perolina/BRP