Cops clueless on motives of robbers of Iloilo disaster NGO

ILOILO CITY—Police have yet to determine the motives of and the identities of robbers who gagged and tied staff members of an Iloilo City-based nongovernment organization helping disaster victims.

Chief Inspector Rhea Santos, Jaro District police station chief, said investigators did not have complete details of last Thursday’s robbery at the Panay Center for Disaster Response (PCDR) Inc. because they were unable to talk with staff members who were reportedly traumatized.

“We want to talk to them so we can get other details and possible description of the intruders,” Santos told the Inquirer on Sunday.

Police have been able to talk only with Marjorie Llada, one of the five female members who were gagged and tied with duct tape by at least three masked persons at the PCDR office and staff house in Lawaan Village, Barangay (village) Balantang.

“They (the four other staff members) went home to Capiz to be with their families. They are still recovering from the horrible experience and asked time to rest,” said PCDR executive director Armie Almero.

“They volunteered to help victims of Supertyphoon ‘Yolanda’ and they were angry why this happened to them,” Almero said.

The PCDR, founded in 1986, provides services to those affected by natural and manmade calamities on Panay and Guimaras islands.

It has been helping at least 58,000 victims of Yolanda which devastated wide areas in Panay.

The organization is implementing five rehabilitation programs including shelter assistance, livelihood, food distribution and school assistance in partnership with international donors like the Caritas International and Mercy Relief, according to Almero.

Llada, PCDR’s finance officer and a member of the management committee, earlier told police she woke up past midnight with a masked man in front of her.

She shouted in surprise but the man covered her mouth and told her not to make any sound.

“We won’t hurt you. I know you,” the man told her in Hiligaynon before tying her hands and feet with duct tape.

Her four companions in the house were also bound and gagged by the men whose faces were covered with handkerchiefs.

The men pulled out the telephone line of the office and took three laptop computers, a printer, a digital camera, seven cell phones, two external hard drives, three flash drives and about P15,000 in cash.

Llada said the men also took 12 columnar books containing their financial records, six logbooks with records of their visitors, communications and usage of their transportation and hundreds of photographs of their activities, trainings and beneficiaries.