Call center agent killed in holdup in Mandaluyong City

MANILA, Philippines—A female call center agent was stabbed dead during a robbery on a partially lit road in Mandaluyong City early Monday.

A few minutes after the killing, barangay (village) watchmen caught the suspect, an out-of-school youth whom they had seen walking on the street with the victim’s brown bag.

The victim, Ma. Fatima Blanco, 23, a resident of Barangay Hagdang Bato Libis in Mandaluyong, had just left her house and was on her way to work when a man held her up at knifepoint.

The holdup and killing happened around 4 a.m. on partially lit R. Vicencio Street, just a few meters away from the victim’s house.

The investigator, Senior Police Officer 1 Joemer Puzon, said the victim’s loud shriek might have triggered the robber to stab her in the left side of her chest.

After the robber left and ran away with her brown bag, the victim managed to walk up to a nearby convenience store and seek help.

She died while being treated at the Mandaluyong Medical Center an hour later.

Puzon said the suspect, identified as Ronald Lomibao, 19, of Welfareville Compound, Addition Hills, was arrested through the joint effort of the tricycle drivers, watchmen and policemen in the area.

“The tricycle drivers saw the suspect running with a brown bag and a blood-stained knife. They alerted the barangay tanods (village watchmen) in Addition Hills where they thought the suspect was headed,” Puzon said.

When Lomibao was stopped by the watchmen in Addition Hills, he was no longer carrying a knife. But they recovered from him a bag containing the victim’s black wallet, perfume, photos, ATM cards and a P20 bill.

Puzon said the cash amounting to P12,000 and a digital camera were still missing, according to the victim’s brother.

In an interview, the suspect, who was detained at the city police headquarters, admitted to having robbed the victim but denied stabbing her.

“I did not stab her. My companion, Jason, did,” the suspect said in Filipino.

The police, however, did not believe the suspect’s claims, saying the witnesses saw only one man holding the stolen bag and the knife used in the stabbing.