ILOILO AT ITS BEST

THE Iloilo City Prosecutors Office (ICPO) dismissed the robbery charge against three suspects implicated in the January 3 robbery of East West Bank in downtown Iloilo City.

Prosecutor Elsa L. Griengo-Tupas said there is not enough proof to indict Arman Mayormente of LaPaz, Iloilo City; Jade Catedral of Badiangan, Iloilo; and Rose Aina Sarmiento of Dingle, Iloilo for the crime of robbery in band and frustrated homicide.

Mayormente, et. al. were charged for the P12-million East West Bank robbery after security guard Lony Pablico and PO2 Hector Pabalan of the PNP Regional Special Operations Group (RSOG) tagged them to the heist.

The nominal complainant in the case is the bank management represented by manager Liberty Valderrama.

The respondents claimed they were nowhere near the bank when the robbery happened in Iloilo City. They also questioned the reliability of the CCTV footages that were used to tag them to the case.

In her resolution dated October 28, 2011, Prosecutor Griengo-Tupas said the evidence presented by the police, including security camera footages from the bank, were insufficient to establish probable cause in filing the charges in court.

“There was no eye witness who personally identified the robbers and none of the bank employees recognized and identified any of the perpetrators. Lony Pablico, the supposed eye witness, lacks credibility and the primary basis of PO2 Pabalan in identifying the respondents in the case are footages of the CCTV taken at the time of the incident. However, when the undersigned reviewed the footages, she found out it is very difficult to make proper identification based only on CCTV,” the resolution said.

The prosecutor said that while the suspects presented alibis in their defense, “but in the light of the infirmity of complainant’s manner of establishing the identity of the respondents, alibi assumes importance.”

The prosecutor also summoned Rojon Hosillos of the National Bureau of Investigation to report their own findings on the heist but the latter said they stopped their probe after the case was filed with the ICPO.

Credits to: The Daily Guardian By: Francis Allan L. Angelo