CAMP VICENTE LIM, LAGUNA—Four men believed to have been among the bank robbers who shot nine people dead last week in the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) branch in Cabuyao have been killed in what police authorities described as two separate shootouts in Tanauan, Batangas.

Chief Supt. Ricardo Padilla, Calabarzon regional police director and head of Task Force RCBC, said Batangas police encountered the four men on Wednesday afternoon and early Thursday in the course of surveillance and follow-up operations in the areas where the bank robbers were believed to be hiding.

But Senior Supt. Aaron Fidel of the Batangas police told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that there was as yet insufficient evidence to link the four men to the robbery-murders at the RCBC-Cabuyao branch.

He said police investigators would need two to three days to conduct ballistic tests on the firearms recovered and to cross-match these with evidence gathered at the bank.

Fidel said, however, that the names of the four men were listed in intelligence reports as members of the Lucido-Javier gang, a purported robbery-holdup band operating in Southern Tagalog.

“In fact, some of our police officers were killed by this group,” he said on the phone.

On television, relatives of the slain men tearfully denied their involvement in the May 16 robbery-murders.

On May 16, eight RCBC-Cabuyao employees, a security guard and a depositor’s representative were shot in the head by robbers who made off with an undetermined amount of money.

Seven of the eight employees, the security guard and the depositor’s representative died on the spot. The eighth employee died in a hospital two days later.

1 cop wounded

There is a P2-million reward for information that would lead to the arrest of the perpetrators.

This was how Fidel recounted the first purported shootout:

The Batangas police team was tailing a certain Pepito Magsino in Barangay 4 Poblacion at around 4:20 p.m. on Wednesday when he began firing.

The police were prompted to shoot back and give chase.

Magsino, 35, was killed. His companions were able to grab his firearm and flee in a vehicle.

One of the policemen, Senior Police Officer 1 Reynaldo Salazar, was shot and is in critical condition in a hospital in Batangas.

“We did a follow-up in the places where the suspected robbers might go,” Fidel said.

He said the follow-up operation in Barangay Pagaspas early Thursday resulted in the killing of three men identified as Vivencio Javier, 55; Angelito Malabanan, 35, and Rolly Lachica, 50. (According to the Philippine National Police in Manila, the encounter took place in Barangay Balokbalok.)

Javier, a former barangay captain, Malabanan and Lachica shot first after they became suspicious that lawmen were watching their moves, Fidel said.

Criminals’ refuge

Fidel described Pagaspas as an upland barangay in Batangas where most wanted criminals often sought refuge. He said the three men were all residents of the barangay.

Batangas police said a Glock 9-mm pistol and magazine with live ammunition, a Winchester rifle, a hand grenade, and spent shells from 5.56-mm and 9-mm firearms were recovered from the dead men.

Cellular phones were also confiscated from Javier’s house.

“One of our approaches [to solving the RCBC robbery-massacre] is to account for all the robbery-holdup groups operating in the region,” Fidel said.

“Through this, we will be able to check if the modus operandi of a certain robbery group is similar to the one used in RCBC,” he said.

Rogues’ gallery

In Manila, PNP Director General Avelino Razon confirmed that the shootout at around 12:40 a.m. Thursday was part of police operations.

“The suspects [in Batangas] are included in the suspects [in the RCBC robbery] that we are hunting down,” Razon said on the phone.

He said police had intended to take in Javier, Malabanan and Lachica for questioning but the three men opened fire at the lawmen.

Per Razon’s account, police showed pictures of known bank robbers to a witness to the RCBC robbery-murders. The latter positively identified one man and police immediately tracked this man’s known cohorts, leading the lawmen to Javier and company.

“The operations were based on a lead given by a witness who saw a picture in the rogues’ gallery. He identified the person in the picture, and we linked him to the Javier group,” Razon said.

The same ones?

He said the three men who were killed in Thursday’s shootout were known members of other known criminal groups in Calabarzon, the region that includes the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon.

Razon declined to name these groups, saying: “We are following up this case to nab the other suspects.”

Maria Fe Castro, widow of RCBC-Cabuyao branch manager Roberto Castro, said she hoped that those killed were “the ones who really murdered my husband and the nine others, so that they will get justice.”

Roberto Castro is to be buried on Saturday at the San Isidro Chapel in Barangay Halang, Calamba City.

Relatives of Bernard Lapaan Jr., who was the bank’s commercial manager, said they were aware of what happened in Tanauan but it was not clear to them if those killed were the perpetrators of the robbery-murders.

Lapaan was buried Thursday at the San Pablo Memorial Garden in San Pablo City. With reports from Alcuin Papa in Manila; Romulo O. Ponte, Inquirer Southern Luzon