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BY RUBY SILUBRICO and RESEL JOY TIANERO
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Saturday, March 11, 2017
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ILOILO City – Police officers were assigned at the parking area of a shopping mall in Barangay San Rafael, Mandurriao district in light of the abduction of two call center agents there on Monday.
And the public should expect more officers to make rounds inside the mall this weekend.
Two Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meetings recently concluded. One more will be held next week.
Four officers were placed at the mall’s parking area on a “roving” assignment from Tuesday to Thursday but were pulled out on Friday, according to Senior Inspector Al Bigay, chief of the Mandurriao police station.
Enough police officers were assigned inside the mall, and the ones at the parking area were making rounds in other places as well, Bigay said.
“May mga police tayo sa front ng mall at sa loob pero ang sa parking area roving lang po kasi kulang tayo ng tao sa station,” he said.
The Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6) downplayed the abduction that occurred when the whole city was supposedly under tight security due to the ongoing ASEAN meetings.
An “isolated case” was how Superintendent Gilbert Gorero, PRO-6 spokesperson, considered the incident that transpired just a few blocks away from the Iloilo Convention Center, venue of the meetings.
Bigay stressed that their priority are the delegates in the ASEAN meetings; security is tighter wherever the delegates are.
But he assured that they are working to make SM City Iloilo shoppers — who also include ASEAN meeting delegates — more secure.
Currently eight police officers were stationed inside the mall.
But this number will rise to 12 on Sunday, when more customers are expected to crowd the shopping center, said Bigay.
Four officers will be detailed at the parking area and 14 inside the establishment, he said.
“Ang iba sa Megaworld, ang iba sa Smallville, at iba sa Atria,” said Bigay.
With “Megaworld,” Bigay meant the Iloilo Business Park, a township of Megaworld Corp., in Mandurriao where the Iloilo Convention Center and various food and office establishments are located.
According to Bigay, the mall does not have a security camera at its parking area. He was clueless when the mall management will install one.
Panay News tried to reach the mall management for further comment, but a mall official referred the paper to the police.
Gorero stressed that the abduction — which victimized the 22-year-old Marc Ymel Jocson of La Paz district and his 24-year-old girlfriend from Mandurriao — was not related to the ASEAN meetings.
“We did not promise a crime-free city because we can’t read the minds of people,” a defensive Gorero had said.
Early this week he said it was their goal to keep the city free from “major crimes” for the duration of the ASEAN meetings.
But Gorero stressed that the abduction could not be considered a “major crime.”
All three suspects were caught. Sirius Jim Villareal, a former seafarer with a pending rape charge, and security guard Reymund Cordero — both 22 years old — were arrested in Barangay Puerto Princesa, Barotac Viejo, Iloilo on Monday. Robert Tingson, 36, was caught on Tuesday.
Villareal was detained in the Special Intensive Care Area (SICA) of the Iloilo District Jail in Barangay Nanga, Pototan, Iloilo.
The SICA is housing 17 prisoners, including Villareal, according to the jail warden Senior Inspector Abner Zamora.
Cordero and Tingson were still detained in the Mandurriao police station lockup cell, waiting for a court order on where they would be jailed.
“Baka nga matagalan pa iyan,” Bigay told Panay News over the phone./PN
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