Bank robbers strike three times in 48 hours

5Bank robbers struck three times in Metro Manila and its southern outskirt of Santa Rosa over a 48-hour period starting on Monday even as President Gloria Arroyo announced that the government is refocusing its efforts from improving the country's peace and order situation to strengthening the economy.

Some P8 million ($160,000) sent by Filipino workers from the Middle East to their families in the Philippines was lost after a group of four heavily-armed masked men waylaid a van loaded with money from a bank in San Juan around 4pm yesterday.

The vehicle was on its way to a remittance centre office in the Manila central suburb to deliver the money when it was ambushed by the robbers.

Police officials, quoting statements of two security guards who were escorting the money, said the gunmen were wearing black shirts printed with bold PNP letters normally worn by members of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

About 24 hours earlier, another group of armed robbers struck at the Equitable-PCI Bank branch in Manila's northern suburb of Caloocan City on Monday and carted away a still undetermined amount of cash in less than 10 minutes in what police said was a "commando-type operation".

Three robbers, all armed with .45-calibre pistols, managed to gain entry into the bank around 4pm on Monday, using a woman as a bait.

"A woman knocked asking for help with her ATM card which she said was stuck in the machine," the bank's private security guard, Florencio Diestro, said.

When Diestro opened the door to help the woman, the three gunmen immediately entered the bank while holding the watchman at gunpoint.

Equitable-PCI Bank officials refused to reveal how much was taken from the tellers' cash drawers.

"The whole thing happened in just 10 minutes," said the guard.

Chief inspector Nestor Dioso of the Caloocan City police said nobody knew how the gunmen escaped as the employees were lying with their faces against the floor.

Caloocan City police chief senior supt. Benjardi Mantele immediately placed Diestro under arrest on suspicion that he was in cahoots with the robbers.

Mantele said the guard, after the three escaped, was left with a shotgun, and went out of the bank as if nothing happened.

"I seriously doubt his story. We are now conducting a thorough investigation into the incident," he said. At around 10am on Monday, another heist took place in Santa Rosa in Laguna province.

Masked men ambushed a Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) service vehicle shortly after it left the bank's branch in this town, killing three employees and wounding another.

The victims were identified as bank teller Francis Semeno, driver Rizalito Pambuon and security guard Primo Azucena. Another teller was wounded and rushed to a hospital in critical condition.