Mall guards nab cabbie linked to 2 Makati holdups

John Matthew Fernandez

The driver of a taxi cab linked to at least two holdup-robbery cases was arrested on Saturday night after he went back to the mall in Makati City where five days earlier, he had picked one of his victims whom he stabbed and then left for dead in Quezon City.

John Matthew Fernandez, 25, was collared on Aug. 23 by alert Rockwell Powerplant mall security guards who recognized the cab’s name (Dean Taxi) and license plate (UVZ 218).

Earlier, one of his victims alerted Rockwell authorities to the taxi cab after she was robbed and stabbed by the driver on Aug. 19. According to the 23-year-old woman who is still recovering from her injuries in a hospital, she flagged down the cab at the mall. Somewhere along the way, Fernandez declared a holdup and then stabbed her repeatedly when she resisted. He then left her for dead in Payatas, Quezon City.

A search of Fernandez’s taxi after he was accosted by Rockwell security guards led to the recovery from the glove compartment of a woman’s pouch which contained P7,000 in cash. Also found were a cell phone and several ID cards which the victim, through a relative, confirmed as among the items taken from her, leading to the filing of theft charges against Fernandez.

SPO1 Debie Louie Semacio of the Makati police said that another victim had come forward and positively identified the suspect as among the three men who robbed her inside a taxi cab on Aug. 9.

The second victim, an employee of a media organization, said that Fernandez was the man who sat down beside her in the back seat.

“I recognized his voice and his build matched that of the man who had his arm around my shoulders during the taxi robbery that lasted for two hours,” Tess (not her real name) told the Inquirer on Thursday.

She said that when she flagged down the Dean taxi on Chino Roces Avenue, also in Makati City, shortly after midnight on Aug. 9, it was sporting a different license plate (ETC 818) based on the markings on the inside of the cab’s doors.

Semacio, however, said that it appeared that the suspects had used correction fluid to tamper with the markings.

“So we thought maybe the plate number she gave us was the one she saw (before the suspects tampered with it,” he added.

According to Tess, after she flagged down the cab, the driver drove down a dimly-lit road where two men got in. They took her cell phone, cash and ATM cards which one of them used to withdraw money from her accounts.

After driving her around for nearly two hours, they let her off in Fairview, Quezon City.

Senior Supt. Manuel Lukban, Makati police chief, said they were set to show Tess pictures of the previous drivers of the Dean taxi to be provided by the cab owner.

According to Lukban, they were looking at the possibility that Fernandez’s cohorts may be among the other cab drivers. The police are also set to file robbery charges against the suspect in connection with Tess’ case.

Meanwhile, a police investigator who refused to be identified, said it was possible Fernandez also had a record with the Eastern Police District as some of its policemen went to the Makati police station to inquire about him when they learned of his arrest. With Maricar B. Brizuela