Man gets 7 years for PUJ robbery

CEBU, Philippines – A man was convicted last Monday for robbing a jeepney passenger in 2005.

Nestor Ansay, a resident of Tugas St., sitio San Roque, barangay Mambaling, Cebu City, was found guilty of robbing Rene Joseph Balbuena.

Balbuena said around 2 p.m. of April 16, 2005, he got into the front seat of a jeepney near the University of San Jose-Recoletos Basak Campus and was heading to Cebu City.

Some time later two men got on, one sat beside him while the other sat in the back.

Later on the man in the back, later identified as Ansay, pulled out a knife, held it against his neck and ordered him to remove his necklace while the man beside him asked for his cell phone and camera. The victim gave up the items out of fear.

PO2 Ulysses Reales of the Mambaling Police Station happened to be seated in the back of the jeepney and grabbed the robber with the knife and fired a warning shot as the robber in the front seat ran away.

Reales ordered the driver to make a U-turn and proceed to the Mambaling police station where the incident was reported. 

Ansay would later confess his accomplice was a certain Nicolas Panunsi, who was able to escape with the victim’s items. Panunsi was charged in absentia.

Although the testimonies of Reales and Balbuena differed as to how Ansay was arrested, RTC Branch 10 judge Soliver Peras said the positive identification of Reales and Balbuena was enough to convict the accused, who had pleaded not guilty to the crime.

Peras sentenced Ansay seven to nine years in prison and ordered him to pay P10,000 in damages for the loss of the victim’s belongings and another P10,000 in moral damages. –Angelica Odias and Iris Christine Cornito (THE FREEMAN)