Security agencies have to explain ‘lapses’

“WE have not found any evidence of an inside job,” said Cebu City Police Chief  Ramon Melvin Buenafe about Monday’s aborted P1.2-million robbery of an armored van’s cash delivery to a bank client in Robinsons Place.

However,  he said there may have been lapses in the store’s security system because the armed men were able to enter the basement supermarket without being detected.

“It’s obvious there were lapses. In the first place, no armed person is authorized to enter the mall,” said Supt. Rex Derilo, head of the  Security Agencies and Guards Supervisory Section (FESSAGS).

He said his office is looking into the role of the security providers of the mall and the armored vehicle of ChinaBank.

Derilo said his office will ask the security providers to submit an explanation.

Two guards of Puritan Security Agency, which secured the bank’s armored car, were killed by the robbers, Leofer Etac and Lito Odag. The NC Lanting Security Agency provides guards of the supermarket.

Supermarket operations resumed normal operation at 1 p.m. on Monday or about three hours after the robbery.  Other mall departments were not affected.

Buenafe said the robbery gang must have conducted surveillance before the heist and observed how and when the bank delivered cash to clients in the mall.

Based on initial information, Buenafe said it was suspect Junjun Cabando and his girlfriend who conducted the surveillance work in the mall.

“We are conducting a regionwide manhunt,” said the police chief. He said they are coordinating with counterparts in Misamis Occidental.