2 security guards in bank massacre under police custody
By Romulo Ponte, Niña Catherine Calleja
Southern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 13:35:00 05/17/2008
CALAMBA CITY, Philippines -- The two security guards employed at the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. in Cabuyao, Laguna, scene of Friday’s heist and grisly massacre of eight bank employees and a customer, are already in police custody, a police official said Saturday.
Senior Superintendent Felipe Rojas, Laguna police director, said one security guard, Regidor Sapon, surrendered to the police Friday afternoon to clear his name.
Another guard, Joel dela Cruz, who was supposed to replace the slain Baltazar Aguilando in the morning, was already under the custody of a security agency of Rizal, he added.
The two overnight security guards could not be found immediately after the gruesome robbery and mass murders were discovered Friday morning.
Branch manager Roberto Panganiban Castro, tellers Bayani Nicdao and Olga Gonzalez, operations assistant Noel Miranda, new accounts officer Teresa Umayam, cashier service head Bernardo Lapaan Jr., janitor Juan Leyva, security guard Baltazar Aguilando and a depositor's representative, Ferdinand Antonio, were all shot in the head.
Marketing manager Isagani Pastor was in critical condition and undergoing treatment in a Laguna hospital.
The robbers fled with undetermined amount of money.
Rojas said that based on police interrogation, Sapon might have had nothing to do with the crime, described as one of the bloodiest bank robberies in the Philippines.
"We think his statement is in good faith," he said.
He said police investigators were sticking to the angle that the robbery was an “inside job” because of some evidence.
Rojas earlier said that the robbers, numbering to six to seven, gained access through the back door and somebody from the inside must have opened it for them.
Police also suspected the gunmen might have waited for the bank employees to arrive.
No sign of forced entry was seen and it was possible that the victims knew the robbers because all of them were deliberately killed, police said.
San Pablo Bishop Leo M. Drona has denounced the crime, adding that the robbers were “worse than the most cruel animals on earth.”
He called on police authorities to exhaust all efforts for a speedy resolution of the case so justice could be served to the victims and their bereaved families.
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