Searching for stolen statues, relics? Go to Pampanga

THESE religious items were recovered by police in Sta. Rita town, Pampanga province, last week. Police officials in Sta. Rita are asking the items’ owners to claim them from the town’s police station. PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE STA.RITA POLICE

STA. RITA, Pampanga—Have your churches or homes lost any religious relics or images to thieves?

Try checking out the finds at the police station here, Senior Insp. Michael Masangkay, the town’s police chief, urged on Friday.

Masangkay asked victims to come here after local police recovered 12 pieces, including what are described as relics of St. John Paul II and St. Claire of Assisi V,

in a house in Barangay (village) Balas, Bacolor town, on the boundary of Sta. Rita town, on July 2.

The tipster, identified as Loming Valencia, claimed that Jeffrey Quintos left the images at the house of his daughter’s sister-in-law.

Quintos is the suspect in the theft of the ivory images of the Virgen de la Correa and the Child Jesus at St. James the Apostle Parish Church in the old district of Betis in nearby Guagua town on June 30.

This was the second time that the image of the Child Jesus was stolen. Quintos escaped on June 8 from the Pampanga provincial jail where he was held for robbery.

Personnel from the Caloocan City police turned over Quintos to Guagua police on Tuesday night, hours after he was arrested while he was selling the image of the Child Jesus in the Monumento district.

Guagua police tracked down the image of the Virgen de la Correa in a house in Barangay San Basilio, Sta. Rita, the next day.

Both images, entered as property of Betis Church in an inventory in 1790, are now in the custody of Fr. Reynaldo de la Cruz, the parish priest.

Masangkay said dozens of clothes for different sizes of images were also recovered in the house in Barangay Balas.

He said police were trying to identify Quintos’ cohorts in the antique collection community.

The images of the Virgen de la Correa and the Child Jesus have not been put on public display again for security reasons, De la Cruz said.  Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central  Luzon