4 suspects to be charged for robbery-slay incident in Laguna

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine National Police (PNP) has made a breakthrough in the recent robbery-slay case in a bank in Laguna thus leading to the formal filing of charges against four suspects, a police official said Friday. Senior Superintendent Aaron Fidel, Calabarzon (Calamba-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon) deputy regional director and head of the Task Force RCBC (Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.), said that six witnesses positively identified the personalities involved in the killing of eight employees, a security guard and a customer of the RCBC branch in Cabuyao, Laguna. Mr. Fidel said that the six witnesses saw some of the people board the getaway vehicle, which belonged to one of the employees. Two of the personalities identified are from a big robbery-holdup syndicate operating in Metro Manila, Central Luzon (Region III) and Southern Tagalog (Region IV) while the other two are "uniformed personnel", said Mr. Fidel. Mr. Fidel however, refused to identify the four suspects as of the moment, saying that "it may hamper operational procedures". He also refused to say whether the two "uniformed personnel" came from the military or the police. Mr. Fidel said that there is no relation between the four new suspects and the four people who were killed in separate shoot-out in Batangas this week. "Those people, who have pending cases of robbery and assault, were engaged by our policemen as part of our anti-crime campaign," he said Friday in the police weekly forum Talakayan sa Isyung Pulis (TSIP) at Camp Crame, Quezon City. But Mr. Fidel said that the task force will conduct an investigation to determine if the four killed have an involvement in the crime. "We will wait for SOCO (Scene of the Crime Operations) to release its findings — whether the fingerprints from the shoot-out suspects’ guns will match fingerprints lifted from the guns found in RCBC," he said. To fast track the case, the provincial police tracking team has put surveillance on all robbery-holdup groups in Luzon, Mr. Fidel said. Mr. Fidel said the task force is also doing a background check on the dead employees. "It may be possible that one or two of them is an accomplice of the robbers, but was killed to eliminate any possibility that there will be evidences against them," he said. The robbers escaped with more than P12 million pesos, Mr. Fidel told reporters. Meanwhile, PNP chief Director General Avelino I. Razon said that many banks in Metro Manila are still not following the Bangko Sental ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) memorandum to install closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems. Mr. Razon conducted a series of inspections along major road and banks in Metro Manila this week, to check on the effectiveness of their installed security systems. Mr. Razon said many of the banks he inspected still have not followed the minimum security requirement, but that he was not in any position to compel the banks to install CCTV systems, as it was the BSP that supervises them. Earlier in the week, the Joint Anti-Bank Robbery Action Committee (JABRAC) and the PNP proposed ideas on how to improve security within banks and other business establishments. Chief Supt. Nicanor Bartolome, PNP spokesman, said that the PNP recommended a partnership with the BSP in the supervision of security equipment inside and outside banks. — Jhoanna Frances S. Valdez, BusinessWorld