Cops net nine suspected robbers

CEBU, Philippines – Cebu City Police Office Theft and Robbery Section rounded up nine alleged robbers over the weekend.

Jomar Mendoza, 24, and Sunny Ardani, 39, both from San Jose, Tacloban City, Leyte were arrested by the said unit in Pier 6 around 4:30 a.m. yesterday. Both are reportedly notorious pickpockets.

Chief Insp. George Ylanan, head of Investigation and Detective Management Brach of CCPO, said both suspects also admitted that they were casing for victims at the time.

Meanwhile, both Michael Jumao-as, 27, of barangay Opon, Lapu-Lapu City and Bernard Juros Abesla, 22, of barangay Carbon, Cebu City, were also arrested for vagrancy at the back of Metro Gaisano late afternoon last Friday.

Police spotted the two said suspects who looked familiar to them from among the crowd. As they went closer to verify, the suspects approached a jeepney allegedly with the intent to snatch the necklace of a woman.

The police shouted at the suspects who then ran off. After a brief chase policemen cornered the suspects and identified them as wanted snatchers.

Four dispatchers were also arrested around 10 p.m. last Saturday at the vicinity of Mango Square Mall along Gen. Maxilom Avenue.

Ronnie Roquez, 37; Gilbert Amante, 36; Philip Enolpe, 35; and Reynante Baylosis, 20, were arrested for the violation of City Ordinance 2108 or the anti-illegal dispatching ordinance.

Cebu City Police Officer director Sr. Supt. Patrocinio Comendador said that the four dispatchers were arrested after a call for assistance from personnel of the Development Bank of the Philippines about the said suspects who are allegedly robbers posing as dispatchers in the area.

The suspects were arrested by policemen conducting a saturation drive in the area following reports of rampant theft and extortion activities of illegal dispatchers in the area.

Comendador said that the suspects’ way of extorting money from the drivers is a form of coercion. Their arrest was one form of deterrence, he said.

In another incident, a man posing as a balut vendor was arrested after allegedly stealing the cellphone of an 18-year-old woman yesterday dawn near the Chong Hua Hospital in barangay Capitol Site.

Tomas Sangatan, 22, of A. Lopez St. was arrested by policemen who were conducting a patrol in the area.

The intended victim, Flory Gane Dalogdog, said that she was about to go home to the said barangay past 1 a.m. that time from an Internet café when the suspect, who pretended to be selling balut on board a bike, threatened her with a knife and asked for her cell phone worth P6,000.

The victim, a native of Cotabato, asked to keep the SIM card but the suspect would not let her and they both grappled for the knife. The victim later sustained a cut in her finger and a bruise in her back when the suspect pushed her to the pavement.

The victim further alleged that there were two men nearby who witnessed the incident but did not help her, instead both ran when Sangatan ran away after taking the cellphone of the victim.

The suspect, who begged for mercy from the victim when the two were brought together at the police station, claimed to be a member of Couples For Christ and that he was only forced to rob so he could feed himself and his pregnant wife.

The suspect’s wife Aileen, joined her husband in pleading for forgiveness but to no avail.

Comendador praised the victim, who was later learned to have stopped schooling because of heart disease, for her courage.

Ylanan said appropriate charges will be filed against all suspects who are now all detained at the CCPO stockade.

Ylanan also said that they are now profiling the identity of arrested suspects for record purposes and easy identification by their victims. — Niña G. Sumacot/BRP (THE FREEMAN)