2nd Manila cop tagged in robbery yields

From cops to robbers, and now jailbirds.

Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim on Wednesday ordered the summary dismissal of two policemen accused of being part of a gang that ransacked a house and held the residents at gunpoint in Sta. Ana, Manila, on May 30.

Police Officer 3 Morris Malindog and Police Officer 2 Robert Cruz, both members the Manila Police District’s Station 6 in Sta. Ana, are facing robbery charges filed by spouses Carlo Mark and Shental Bagui of Paco Roman Street.

Cruz and a third suspect, barangay (village) executive officer Regente Osalla, 36, of Pasig Line, Sta. Ana, were arrested on Friday, while Malindog surrendered yesterday to the National Capital Region Police Office, which then turned him over to the MPD.

Cruz was arrested after Carlo Bagui, a sales manager at SM Development Corp., reported the robbery at the Sta. Ana station, where he saw the officer and recognized him as one of the robbers. He then turned to another MPD unit—the theft and robbery section at the MPD’s UN Avenue headquarters—to seek Cruz’s arrest.

An hour after Cruz was taken into custody, the MPD members and Baguis chanced upon Osalla driving a red Mitsubishi Exceed car (THD 998), reportedly owned by Cruz, on Sagrada Familia Street also in Sta. Ana.

In their earlier report to the police, the Baguis said four armed men went to their house on Wednesday night and pretended to be looking for a certain Eric and Anton.

The men, who appeared to be high on drugs, then force their way into the house and locked up the family, including three children, in the toilet before ransacking the place. The Baguis said they lost cash, jewelry, important documents, and high-end gadgets worth about P2.1 million in the robbery.

The robbers even took the lockets containing the ashes of a family member, the pet dog, and even the chocolate bars in the refrigerator, they said.

In a meeting with Lim on Wednesday, the Bagui couple added that the suspects threatened to lob a grenade and shoot anyone in the family who would try to escape.

They said the suspects left with their loot in the red Mitsubishi car, the same vehicle driven by Osalla when he was arrested later on Friday.