Village dad loses P585K cash and jewelry to burglars

By Jennifer P. Rendon

Iloilo province recorded another house burglary on Jan 23, 2020.

This time, the burglars hit the house of the barangay captain of Cahaguichican in Pototan town.

Police Major Ronnie Brillo, Pototan police chief, said the burglar/s only target one item: a vault.

The vault is placed inside the room occupied by Barangay Captain Amacio Velasco’s son, Rommel.

At the time of the incident, Rommel was in Guimaras province. His parents were sleeping in the other room while his brother, Rey and his wife and four children were staying in the adjacent house.

Brillo said the Velasco abode is in a fenced property. The intruder entered the back gate by destroying the padlock.

The back door was also destroyed before the burglar/s proceeded to Rommel’s room and smashed the doorknob.

The robber/s left the firearm placed beside the vault and an envelope containing P9,000 cash.

Brillo said the vault was then taken out to the backyard. The suspect/s used an ax to open the vault and divest the cash and jewelry.

Rommel claimed that he’s not keen on keeping a big amount of cash in his house.

But on Thursday, Rommel, who is also a palay buyer, stashed the money for a transaction.

Brillo said they only learned of the incident around 9:45 a.m. Thursday.

The family initially decided not to inform the police of what happened. But when Rommel arrived from Guimaras, he insisted on having the incident investigated.

“We then noted unusual actuation when we made it known that we would ask for the assistance of SOCO (Scene of the Crime Operations),” Brillo said.

A person whom Brillo declined to identify, allegedly wanted to leave the house as SOCO officers were about to arrive.

“But our investigators told him that he will be considered a suspect once he goes out of the property,” he said.

Brillo said they later placed a police line and the same person wanted to cross it.

“But he was again cautioned not to tamper with the pieces of evidence,” he said.

The SOCO team was able to lift latent prints on the area.

Investigators later extracted the fingerprints of all house occupants and workers.

Brillo admitted that the suspect/s might be familiar to the victim as they knew their way around the house.

“The robber/s knew where the money was kept,” he said.

The suspect/s also knew that Rommel was keeping a large amount of money in the house.

“Hopefully, the SOCO probe would help in identifying the robber,” Brillo said.

Earlier, Police Colonel Roland Vilela, Iloilo police chief, ordered all chiefs of police to implement the Enhanced Managing Police Operations (EMPO).

Vilela issued the order after a certain Yenie Bakial, 41, claimed to have lost P4 million cash and P100,000 worth of jewelry inside her home in Pavia town.

Last January 14, more or less P192,000 worth of jewelry and electronic gadgets were taken from a house in Barangay Salacay, Cabatuan, Iloilo.