2 nabbed for QC hijack of truck full of detergent

Two of the men who allegedly hijacked a delivery truck carrying detergent bars were arrested on Tuesday in Manila hours after the heist in Quezon City.

The suspects were tracked down as the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) noted how the robbers pretended to be law enforcers by wearing police field training uniforms.

Around 11 p.m. on Monday, a 10-wheel truck driven by Ernesto Onite, with helper Michael Rosas, was flagged down by five men in police athletic shirts and caps on G. Araneta Avenue in Barangay Santol, according to the QCPD director Chief Supt. Joel Pagdilao.

After Onite pulled over at the corner of Palanza Street, the men forced him and Rosas out of the truck at gunpoint and ordered them to board a white van.

But instead of getting into the van, Onite and Rosas ran away until they reached a police checkpoint at the corner of Aurora Boulevard and Guirayan Street, where they were able to report the robbery. Members of the QCPD Galas station later caught up with the hijacked truck on Pureza Street in Sampaloc, Manila. Arrested on the spot was Romeo Bacod, 47, who was then driving the truck.

Bacad, a driver-mechanic from Caloocan City, was alone in the vehicle and yielded a .45-caliber pistol, a hand grenade and two police training shirts and two caps. Using Bacod’s cell phone, the police set a trap for Bacod’s accomplices and later arrested Remigio Umali, 49, also of Caloocan, at a mall on Araneta Avenue.

Recovered from Umali was a .38-caliber revolver. The truck, belonging to J. Roland Trucking, was loaded with about 1,300 detergent bars when hijacked, the QCPD said. Jaymee T. Gamil