5 RCBC massacre suspects now known to cops
By Niña Catherine Calleja
Southern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 20:36:00 05/26/2008
CAMP VICENTE LIM, Laguna, Philippines -- Police have identified five suspects, including two uniformed personnel in the murders of 10 bank employees during a robbery at the Rizal Commercial Bank Corp. (RCBC) in Cabuyao, Laguna, on May 16.
Senior Superintendent Aaron Fidel, head of RCBC Taskforce and deputy regional director for operation in Calabarzon, said in an interview that based on the accounts of six witnesses, they were able to identify the real names, backgrounds, affiliations, and the last known addresses of five suspects while four others were only identified through their aliases.
Three people recognized two of the gunmen onboard the getaway vehicle used after the massacre while three other witnesses who were near the crime scene saw two men enter the bank.
A witness peeped through a glass window and got a view of the robbers, one was pointing a gun to one of the victims, Fidel said.
He refused to divulge the identities of the suspects so as not to derail their ongoing operations.
"We are also protecting the security of our witnesses. You know, (robbers) are capable of getting back at them," he said, adding that the witnesses might be known to them.
He said one witness, who used to loiter near the bank, was forced by the robbers to leave the area before the robbery-murders.
Police were preparing the filing of charges against the suspects, Fidel said. "But we are doing it cautiously."
"Through case conferences, we are trying to complete the puzzle and what really happened in order."
Two of the suspects, according to Fidel, are in their own houses but with policemen who accompany them and monitor their activities.
"They were just invited because we still have no formal charges and warrant of arrest with us," he said.
Police was not yet discarding the angle of “inside job," Fidel said, but police were still establishing the link of the robbers to the bank employees.
"It is highly probable that there is (an inside job)," he said.
But police were sure that the robbery was well planned.
"They know the amount of the money in the bank, the floor plan, the time when the employees usually check in, and who opens the vault," Fidel said.
"And they even knew that gunshots from the inside won't be heard outside."
According to police investigation, one of the slain employees disarmed the security alarm based on the computer record.
The alarm is usually turned on after banking hours, according to Fidel. "Whenever someone enters, the buzz would reach RCBC head office and the local police and only three authorized persons could turn the alarm off," he added.
What was still puzzling, he said, was that employees did not use the secret and manually operated alarms that were normally used during banking hours.
Asked if one of the guards, Joselito dela Cruz, who earlier reported to be changing his statements, was a suspect, Fidel said, "everybody is a suspect, especially those who have connection with the bank."
He said he would not answer the question for fear their investigation would be hampered.
Dela Cruz also failed the second polygraph test and would be put to a series of questionings, police said.
Police, meanwhile, maintained that the killings of suspects in Tanauan, Batangas were legitimate shootouts.
"Anyone who lost a loved one can do coverups," Fidel said.
But the police, he said, subjected themselves to an investigation and were still collecting all the evidence.
In one case, a police officer was shot during the encounter.
"No officer in his right frame of mind would shoot his colleague just to make it appear as a shootout," he said.
Scene of the crime operatives are still processing all the evidence needed such as ballistic tests and fingerprints to determine if those killed were connected to the RCBC massacre.
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