Paranaque subdivision robbery: Bank exec’s kids tied to bed

MANILA, Philippines–The Paranaque police are looking for four men who were able to get into a highly secure subdivision in the city, break into the house of a bank manager and make off with a still undetermined amount of cash and several gadgets on Tuesday night.

Senior Insp. Eutecio Oña, chief of the Police Community Precinct 8, said that among those taken by the robbers were two liquid crystal display televisions, a laptop computer, an iPad and a BlackBerry cell  phone.

The owners of the house at Phase 1 in Timra, Barangay Moonwalk, were identified as Andre Manuel Abellarosa, a manager of a Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. branch, and his wife, Milagros, who works for the National Police Commission.

“According to the statement of the maids in the house, the suspects, who rode [in] a Toyota Fortuner with plate number FOV 747, honked at their front gate at around 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Thinking it was the couple, she opened the gate for them,” Oña said in a telephone interview.

Once inside the house, the robbers who were all armed and wearing masks, herded all of the occupants—two maids, the couple’s two young children and the child of one of the maids—into the master bedroom.

The victims were then tied to the bed while the armed men ransacked the house before fleeing with their loot.

Around 30 minutes later, the couple arrived at the house, discovered the heist and immediately reported it to the police.

Aside from the electronic gadgets, the police said the robbers also took a still undetermined amount of money and jewelry.

Oña suspected that the thieves had been monitoring the family’s movements for sometime because they were familiar with the couple’s routine.

He added that security at the subdivision was also tight and that nonresidents could not easily get in.