EDITORIAL - In cold blood

From the manager to the janitor, eight employees and a security guard were found murdered in their bank in Cabuyao, Laguna yesterday morning; the customer relations manager died in a hospital later in the afternoon. Authorities are still trying to determine the amount that was taken from the bank vault.

It was the bloodiest bank robbery yet in a long string of cases in recent months. In more typical incidents particularly in Metro Manila, robbers riding tandem on a motorcycle – the best vehicle for a getaway in traffic-clogged streets – grabbed cash newly withdrawn by a client emerging from a bank. The robbers always appeared to have good info, knowing which clients carried a lot of cash, leading law enforcers to focus on inside jobs.

The same possibility is being pursued in yesterday’s robbery. The crooks, who disabled the bank’s closed-circuit TV, killed each victim with a gunshot to the head before fleeing in a car stolen from one of the murdered tellers. Clients impatient over the failure of the bank to open on time alerted the police that something was amiss.

Like other crimes, each unsolved robbery emboldens crooks and encourages similar attacks. During the Ramos administration, the big crime problem was kidnapping for ransom. In the short-lived Estrada administration, the principal targets were banks’ cash-laden armored vehicles. In both cases, the crimes stopped only after aggressive, high-profile campaigns to arrest and neutralize notorious crooks. And in both cases, cooperation of those affected was crucial.

The same is true of bank robberies. Investigators need the cooperation not just of bank executives but also of private security agencies to ferret out members of organized robbery syndicates and other crooks. Security measures in all banks must be further tightened and coordination with police strengthened. Banks can write off assets lost to robberies, leaving insurance companies to take the hit. But no amount of insurance can ever be enough to compensate for a life lost.

Apart from the need for tighter security measures, the police must catch bank robbers. Especially cold-blooded murderers who have no compunction about snuffing out 10 lives.