Cops to quiz driver in UP Diliman heist

The Quezon City police are looking into the possible complicity of an armored van driver who survived an attack by robbers that left three people dead at the University of the Philippines-Diliman campus Monday.

Quezon City Police District director Senior Superintendent Magtanggol Gatdula said yesterday that they will subject the driver – a security guard of Dasia Security Agency – to a lie-detector test.

The test was to be performed yesterday, said QCPD deputy director for operations Senior Superintendent Federico Laciste Jr., the designated head of the “special investigation task force” formed to solve the robbery and the killings. “We’re not yet pinning him (driver) down yet but there are questions that he has to answer,” he told reporters.

Laciste said they will also conduct a background check on the driver, whose name the police refused to reveal pending further investigation.

Gatdula noted that neither did the driver fire a single shot at the suspects nor did he speed away with the van, whose engine was running at the time of the heist, to evade the robbers who staked out the van outside the UP Bahay ng Alumni where a branch of the Philippine Veterans Bank was located.

He also said that had the driver backed up the van, he could have run over one of the suspects.

“It’s not normal that your comrades had been killed and you (being a security guard) could not even react or retaliate,” Gatdula said. The robbers, using rifles and shotguns, shot dead bank teller Genaro Aguirre and security guards Renato Reyes and Rene Demerey before fleeing with an undetermined amount of money.

Laciste also noted that the suspects did not shoot at the front part of the van, where the driver was seated, even if they surrounded the vehicle.

Gatdula said the QCPD’s “hunter teams” will get the suspects “in a few days,” but also urged the public to provide information in exchange for a P700,000 reward.

Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte’s donation of P200,000 brought the reward offered by Metro Manila police chief Director Jefferson Soriano to P700,000.

Soriano appealed to anyone who knows the suspects’ whereabouts to call the nearest police station or the National Capital Regional Police Office Tactical Operations Center at 838-3203 and 838-3354.

Ex-cons eyed in robbery

Gatdula said most of those they suspect could be behind the robbery are former convicts, not former soldiers or policemen.

“This is the group we have been looking for who have been posing as agents of the PNP, PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency) and NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) in staging robberies,” he said.

The QCPD also released yesterday the artist sketch of one of the suspects, who, according to Superintendent Antonio Yarra, was the first one who fired shots at the guards and the bank teller.

Following a case conference called by Soriano at Camp Karingal Monday night, investigators said the suspects behind the armored van robbery in UP Diliman could be the same people who staged eight other heists in the metropolis recently.

Gatdula cited similarities in the vehicles used in the robberies and the sightings of license plates similar to the SFV-905 plate initially attached to a blue Mitsubishi Adventure used by the suspects.

The QCPD chief said some of the numerals or letters on the license plates were tampered. Gatdula said the Philippine Veterans Bank has yet to provide them with the actual amount of the stolen cash, which “seems to be big.”

“They are still conducting an audit... But it’s not the bank’s money. The money was yet to be deposited into the bank,” he said.

Gatdula said yesterday that prior to the robbery, the armored van had picked up money from the bank’s various branches.

A security guard positioned at the rooftop of the UP Bahay ng Alumni attempted to fight off the robbers but eventually stopped firing shots after the suspects retaliated. Gatdula said this security guard may have shot and injured one of the suspects.

After the attack, the police located the Adventure in front of the Vanguard building, approximately 500 meters away from the Bahay ng Alumni.

Chief Inspector Enrico Figueroa, chief of the QCPD’s theft and robbery investigation section, earlier said two witnesses saw four men alight from the Adventure and transfer to a maroon Toyota Revo.

Upon verification, the Adventure was formerly owned by a certain Perpetio Camilla of Las Piñas City, who died this year. Gatdula said the Adventure had been swapped for another vehicle.

Meanwhile, Gatdula said he was approached by UP Diliman’s vice chancellor, who told him school officials will meet on the issue of using police officers to secure the campus.

The UP Police has sole jurisdiction over the campus under a memorandum of agreement with the police. National Police Commission chairman and Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno said yesterday they will hold a dialogue with the UP board of regents to determine if there is a need to amend the memorandum.

Gatdula also cited as a factor that may have contributed to the occurrence of the robbery was a “very costly human error” on the part of the security guards, who left their bulletproof vests inside the van instead of wearing them while on duty. – With Cecille Suerte Felipe, Michael Punongbayan, Non Alquitran