PCSO comes to aid of troubled QC security guard

The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) is shouldering the hospitalization of the child of a security guard who, drunk and beset with financial problems, locked himself up and raised tension in a Quezon City commercial area on Wednesday. PCSO chair Jose Jorge Corpuz and general manager Alexander Balutan on Thursday said the agency was extending assistance to Hermigildo Marsula Jr. of Grandiose Security and Services Corp.  In the early morning of June 21, the 33-year-old Marsula holed himself up in the basement security office of Cyberpod at Eton Centris Mall, reportedly after punching and poking his gun at a passerby. Policemen  placed the area on lockdown until the guard surrendered after five hours. Marsula, a resident of Bulacan province, later explained that he was burdened with financial problems, with his 12-year-old son suffering from hemophilia and now requiring surgery after dislocating his kneecap in an accident.  —Jodee A. Agoncillo, Nikka Valenzuela