Leader of 'scheming' power cable robbers jailed in Agusan del Sur

COTABATO CITY — One of four men notorious for stealing aluminum power transmission cables in Agusan del Sur that they sell to buyer is now in the custody of authorities.

In separate reports on Sunday, the Agusan del Sur Provincial Police Office and the Rosario Municipal Police Station in Rosario town stated that the group of the now detained Roel Galve would cut tall trees close to power cables dangling between two posts for them to easily cut and collect the aluminum lines that they sell to buyers of scrap metals and other recyclable materials in different towns.

Last December 22, Galve and his companions, who were identified by local officials as Jovit Ampog, Rem-Rem Toralba and Robert Otero, stole the high-tension power transmission cables in between two posts in Purok-14 in Sitio Salcedo in Barangay Bayugan 3, Rosario, causing power outage in villages around.

Radio reports on Sunday said that soldier on vacation, Private 1st Class Christopher Ambongan II of the Army’s 67th Infantry Battalion, promptly cornered the fleeing Galve and confiscated from him a large bag filled with folded aluminum cables weighing 19 kilos. 

Galve is now clamped down in a detention facility of the Rosario MPS, according to reports by leading radio stations in this city.

Brig. Gen. Kirby John Brion Kraft, director of the Police Regional Office-13, on Sunday ordered the intelligence units under PRO-BAR and the Agusan del Sur PPO to help personnel of the Rosario MPS locate the three companions of Galve — Ampog, Toralba and Robert Otero — for them to be prosecuted with the help of barangay officials and villagers who can testify on their criminal offenses.