79-year-old man arrested for stealing chocolates at grocery store

MANILA, Philippines—A 79-year-old man was arrested on Monday for allegedly stealing a small bag of chocolate worth P36 at a grocery store in Manila.

Ricardo Castro, a resident of the Madrid Extension in Tondo, claimed that he simply forgot to pay for the pack of chocolate because he was thinking of his ailing son while he was shopping for groceries at the Ultra Mega wholesale and retail mart at the corner of CM Recto Avenue and Antonio Rivera Street in Tondo.

But SPO2 Cody Carmelo, desk officer of the Manila Police District (MPD) Moriones Tondo station 2, said that representatives of the grocery did not buy Castro’s story and filed a theft charge against him before the city prosecutor’s office.

Carmelo told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the alleged theft happened at around 11 a.m., Monday, inside the Ultra Mega store. Castro, he pointed out, was on his way out of the store carrying a bag of groceries when 21-year-old security guard Wilson Bangug noticed something bulging from the septuagenarian’s back pants pocket.

When Bangug accosted Castro and frisked him, he allegedly found the P36-chocolate inside the septuagenarian’s back pocket. The discovery prompted him to turn over the elderly man to police custody.

“He (Castro) said his son had cancer and that was the reason he was not himself. He said he just forgot to pay for the item,” Carmelo told the Inquirer, adding that the elderly suspect even offered to pay for the item he allegedly stole.

But even after his claims, the complainant continued to press the theft charge against him before the city prosecutor’s office where the inquest officer asked Castro for proof of his son’s illness.

Castro remains detained at the holding cell of the MPD Tondo station.