IT was a store employee and not the boutique itself that was robbed at the ground floor of the Gaisano Country Mall in barangay Banilad, Cebu City last Friday morning.
Senior Supt. Melvin Ramon Buenafe, Cebu City police chief, made this clarification following reports about the robbery in the Clothes Minded Gift Shop at the mall.
Buenafe said he was informed by the Theft and Robbery Section (TRS) of the Mabolo police that the P13,000 cash taken by robbers from employee Rachel Lusarito was her own money.
The cash didn’t come from the boutique’s proceeds that were supposed to be deposited last Friday.
He said the robbery occurred when Lusarito was about to open the shop about 9 a.m. and the holduppers followed her inside.
Buenafe said he believed the holdup was pulled by local hoodlums since they were only armed with knives.
He questioned how the security guard was unable to notice the robbery since it happened within the ground floor and not at the top floors.
The security guard, Rodolfo Donato, said he was patrolling the mall grounds when the robbery was reported to him past 10 a.m.
The boutique’s cashier, Rose Alguzar, has the key to the cash register and said she arrived at the boutique also past 10 a.m. The cash register was not forced open or damaged.
Buenafe said the police are looking for witnesses to come forward.
The 36-year-old Lusarito, a resident of barangay Yati, Liloan town, sustained cuts on her neck inflicted by one of the robbers.
According to Lusarito’s co-worker, the clerk hid inside the restroom out of fear. The mall had no security cameras in their premises.
She is still confined in a hospital and has yet to give her account of the incident to the police. Correspondent Chito Aragon