Bike-riding men rob gas station

Two unidentified armed men onboard a motorcycle robbed a gas station in Caloocan City the other night, the police said.

Station Intelligence and Investigation Division (SIID) chief Superintendent Dionicio Borromeo said no one was reported killed or hurt in the heist, the second for the establishment this year.

Marcosa Bisol, cashier at the Shell gas station on 2nd Street along Rizal Avenue Extension, said she lost P6,000 in cash to the robbers.

Bisol told probers the suspects arrived riding tandem on a Kawasaki motorcycle at around 9:20 Friday night and posed as customers. After filling up the bike, one acted as a lookout as the other poked a gun at Bisol asking for the money which she immediately gave.

Bisol said she failed to take a good look at the helmeted suspect who quickly sped off with his partner towards Monumento after taking the money.

Bisol told probers this was the second time this year the station was robbed, the first time was only last Aug. 15 when she also was on duty.

Bisol said three men staged the holdup then but failed to take anything. Bisol, who was then four months pregnant, was shot in the chest by one of the suspects who panicked after she hesitated to give the money in the cash register.

"The first time it happened, the suspects just walked in but failed to take any money. Now the robbers were on board a motorcycle. One acted as a lookout while the other took the money," narrated Bisol.

Borromeo has ordered Inspector Marcelo Mariano, chief of the Follow-up Unit, and his men to go after the suspects.

Meanwhile, one of two still unidentified armed men was killed while the other escaped unhurt in a shootout with policemen after being caught robbing two persons in Valenzuela City shortly after midnight yesterday.

City police officer-in-charge (OIC) Senior Superintendent Oscar Paginado said his men found no identification papers on the slain man.

Investigation showed that PO2 Exequiel Sangco and PO1 Manfred Borbon were on patrol when they spotted two males acting suspiciously at about 12:30 a.m. in front of the Petron Gasoline Station along McArthur Highway in Barangay Malinta. They later found that victims Eugene Santos, 25, and Gino Gonzalez, both of Poblacion 2, Santiago Drive, Valenzuela City were being robbed.

As they alighted from their patrol car to accost them, the suspects opened fire with .38 revolvers. The officers fired back with their 9 mm service pistols, hitting the slain suspect once in the head and several times in the body, but his cohort escaped.

Police recovered the suspect’s handgun. — Jerry Botial