Ex-volleyball player of PLM chases bag snatcher, sends him to jail

MANILA, Philippines — An ex- volleyball varsity player of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila chased a snatcher who stole her bag inside a bus, sending him to the Malabon City detention cell.

Around 8:30 p.m. Monday, the gray Heartstrings bag of Liezl Marquez, 31, an accounting supervisor, was forcibly taken by Angelito Hipolito, 18, inside a UE Letre-bound bus along P. Aquino St., at the corner of Lascano St., in Barangay Tugatog, Malabon City.

Inside her bag were her Samsung galaxy cell phone worth P10,000, wallet with cash worth P3,000 and an ATM card.

SPO4 Ferdinand Espiritu, supervising investigator of the Malabon City Police, said Hipolito was involved in a series of robbery-holdups in the Caloocan-Malabon area. He was arrested earlier in 2015 for robbing and shooting a taxi driver dead also this year.  He was only 17 years old then but he escaped from the facility of the Department of Social Welfare and Development where he was detained for being a minor.

Marquez said Hipolito, who got inside the bus at Sangangdaan, suddenly got her bag. She and Hipolito fought for the possession of bag but the latter fell off near the bus door then ran away with the bag.

Barefooted, Marquez left her grocery on the bus and chased Hipolito for at least 500 meters in a dark area almost near the cemetery and caught him. The police responded while the people nearby aided her.

“My initial response was to get my bag as I have all my identification cards there,” she said, adding that not going after him would waste her years of training as a volleyball player.

Her father Alejo Marquez was not as happy with what his eldest daughter did.

“She’s fortunate the snatcher did not have an accomplice and a weapon…I don’t want her to chase the suspect if this happens again,” he said.

The younger Marquez — a lady spiker standing around 5’7″ tall — said this was the second time she chased a snatcher. In 2001, however, she was not able to catch the robber.

“Still, I would not advise people to do what I did,” Marquez said, who said she would pursue the case against the suspect.  SFM