Police nab robbers who pushed victim off moving bus

MANILA, Philippines – Police have arrested two young men allegedly involved in robbing a call center agent who died a few days after being stabbed and pushed off a moving bus in Quezon City.

Inspector Elmer Monsalve, homicide section chief of the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, said Jayson Montoya, 20, and Dyerald Navia, 18, were arrested after robbing a woman and have been positively identified as being among the group of youngsters who robbed and stabbed call center agent Paolo Arizala.

Two gasoline station employees identified the two as among the boys who even checked out Arizala’s inert body after the victim was pushed off a moving bus and onto the street in May.

Arizala fell onto the street at the corner of Edsa and Bansalangin Street in Project 8 and was found to have been stabbed in the chest. He died a few days later.

Montoya and Navia were arrested at 11:15 p.m. Friday after robbing Maricel Joan Yubac near the EDSA MRT Munoz Station.

Police found a knife in Montoya’s garments while Yubac’s phone was recovered from Navia.

Case investigator Senior Police Officer 3 Nick Fontanilla said they were tasked to board buses on Edsa at night, dressed in civilian clothes, in a bid to arrest Arizala’s killers and avert bus hold-ups on Edsa.

The police operatives were on patrol Friday night when Yubac flagged them down for help, claiming she was robbed by two men while waiting for a jeepney. The suspects robbed her at knife-point and later fled by boarding a northbound bus on Edsa.

The police patrol car chased the bus and blocked its path in front of the Macro supermarket on Congressional Road, after which the suspects were arrested.

Monsalve said the suspects, believed to be part of a larger group, were behind several bus robberies at night on Edsa.