Families bereaved, bravery lauded

While two Cebu City police officers received awards and were promised incentives for their role in foiling the P1.2-million heist at the Robinsons Place mall last Monday, the families of two security guards who died in the incident received some small consolation.

The widows of Lito Odag and Leofer Etac were visited by party-list Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo of Ang Galing Pinoy, a political party for security guards and tricycle drivers, and they received financial assistance.

Odag was interred at the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes in Junquera Street while Etac’s wake is in a small chapel in barangay Apas, Cebu City.

Odag’s widow, Elma, said Arroyo promised to secure her daughter Eunice’s education.

Etac’s wife, Jasmine, told Arroyo that the agency he worked for has not yet visited them yet.

Jasmine said she convinced her husband to resign by December and invest his 13th-month pay for a small store to support their three children.

“The bank paid the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes in Lahug P10,000 for the funeral expenses but we still have a balance of P30,000,” Jasmine said.

She told Cebu Daily News that the security agency did not provide any financial aid yet.

Elma said ChinaBank also paid P10,000 for her husband’s funeral expenses but they still have P20,000 left to pay for.

She said the security agency Odag and Etac worked for, Puritan Security Agency, paid for her husband’s hospital bills.

“We have an unpaid balance of P20,000 for the funeral homes and P5,000 for the hospital bills,” Elma said.

She said she and her husband helped each other in running their eatery in Sanciangko, Cebu City.

She said she and her daughter Eunice, a sixth grader who won a silver medal award in gymnastics in this year’s Little Milo Olympics, were inconsolable after learning about her husband’s death from neighbors.

“We hope that justice will be given for my husband’s death,” she said.

Elsewhere, PO1 Roy Ceniza and PO1 Elrich Jourdin Catacutan both received the “Medalya ng Sugatang Magiting” award from the Cebu City Police Office for helping foil last Monday’s robbery.

Chief Supt. Ager Ontog, Police Regional Office (PRO) chief, showed courage and quick thinking when they foiled the robbery.

Catacutan and Ceniza, who were both confined at the Chong Hua Hospital for their gunshot injuries, were classmates in Basic Training.

Catacutan, who is assigned in the Mobile Patrol Group, said his father SPO1 Richard Catacutan worked as a police investigator in the Fuente police precinct for 21 years.

His younger brother is also a licensed policeman who’s still applying for a job./Correspondents Carine M. Asutilla, Edison delos Angeles and Rhea Ruth V. Rosell