Drunk cager lends car to pal, reports it as stolen

MANILA, Philippines -- A professional basketball player reported his sports car as stolen after a night of drinking with friends, only to find out his friend borrowed it and parked the vehicle a few blocks away from the bar where he had been drinking.

Abraham “Abby” Santos, 26, a reserved player for the Talk N Text Phonepals, was finally able to retrieve his silver Mitsubishi GSR (CPR-191) yesterday morning at the Quezon City Police District.

“He (Santos) may have forgotten that he lent his car or to ask his friend where the latter parked it,” anti-carjacking chief Inspector Angelo Nicolas said.

Reporters chanced upon Santos as he claimed his car yesterday but the athlete, who used to play for the University of the Philippines, declined to give any statement and said: “I left something behind.”

“He (Santos) looked he had a bit to drink when he went here,” Nicolas stated, as he described Santos when the latter reported the purported car theft incident on Sunday at around 6 a.m.

Santos initially told policemen his sports car was stolen in between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Sunday.

Nicolas said Santos parked his car at a construction site along Thomas Morato Extension as he and his friends were at the nearby Guilly’s bar. When he went out, the vehicle was no longer there.

“Because of the report, I immediately dispatched a team to scour the area as in any case of a car theft report,” Nicolas said.

However, policemen found the sports car parked in front of a coffee shop about four blocks away from where Santos left originally the vehicle. “We were able to recover the vehicle and from there we deduced what really happened,” Nicolas said.

He said they found out that a friend, a certain Tito Caloy, borrowed the car in the middle of the drinking session. When Caloy came back, he parked the sports car elsewhere.

Following the recovery of the car, policemen held the vehicle for a day until Santos was able to produce ownership papers.