No complaints yet vs ‘looters’

Several days after stores inside the Glorietta mall in Makati City were allegedly looted, local law enforcers said no formal complaints have been filed with their office.

Senior Police Officer 4 Dioscoro Asinas, officer-in-charge of the theft and robbery section of the Makati City police, told The STAR that no stall, store or mall owner has come forward to lodge a formal complaint regarding the looting.

There are suspicions that some of the soldiers who staged a mutiny last Sunday might be behind the looting. The mutinous soldiers, who called themselves the Magdalo Group, had taken control of the Oakwood Premiere Ayala Center, a luxury apartment building adjacent to Glorietta mall.

"The mall was closed last Sunday. They (Magdalo) were the ones there. When they took over Oakwood last Sunday, the place was also properly cordoned off so no civilian was allowed to come near the Glorietta," Asinas said.

However, he added, it appears they would have difficulty in building a strong case against the Magdalo Group because there were no witnesses and no fingerprints were found in the mall. The store attendants and mall janitors had cleaned the building just before business resumed Monday morning.

"We have already coordinated with Premiere Security, the security agency in charge of the mall, that if any stall or store owner wants to file a complaint they should bring them to us," Asinas said.

Last Wednesday, an inventory conducted at the Rustan’s Supermarket found that a box of cooking oil, 10 boxes of noodles, three boxes of mineral water, four boxes of canned tuna, and seven kilos of rice were missing. This has fueled speculations that the Magdalo Group may have taken the missing items to replenish their supply.

Asinas said some 20 establishments were also robbed, but a cellular phone store sustained the largest loss —the culprits stole thousands of pesos worth of cellular cards and other items.

He added, "The suspects did not destroy many glass windows of the other stalls because they were not locked. They were able to enter the cellular phone dealer’s shop by climbing up the ceiling." — Evelyn Macairan