Another driver tagged in bus heists

MANILA, Philippines - Another bus driver was identified yesterday as reportedly one of the members of a gang of bus and taxi drivers who rob their passengers.

AC Transit Bus driver Mark Anthony Villanueva – who reported a robbery in his vehicle along EDSA in Barangay Kamuning, Quezon City on Oct. 5 – had been invited yesterday to identify men arrested for two bus heists over the weekend.

He ended up being detained by the police after Ariel Adrales, one of those arrested for robbing a Cher bus on Sunday, insisted that Villanueva received his share of the loot from the Oct. 5 bus heist, said Inspector Alan dela Cruz, head of the Quezon City Police District’s theft and robbery investigation section.

Adrales “was saying Mark Anthony took some of the stolen gadgets and had his share of the drugs,” Dela Cruz told The STAR, referring to the practice of the suspects of doing drugs after a robbery.

Adrales, Roger Alaraz, Aquilino Soriano, and Jeffrey Reyes were arrested at a house in Meycauayan, Bulacan, during a pot session, on Sunday morning following two robberies along Edsa in Quezon City.

Their location was given by driver Bobby Bondoc, who had reported the robbery on his bus, a unit of Malanday Metro Link, on Saturday afternoon.

He was also arrested after police officers noticed text messages on his phone indicating that he conspired with the other suspects to stage the robberies in his bus and a Cher bus.

QCPD director Chief Superintendent Richard Albano, during a press conference on Monday, said the suspects had worked as drivers and conductors for either Malanday Metro Link or Cher bus firms but had been dismissed from their jobs.