CEBU CITY -- The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has identified the fourth fatality in the shootout between its agents and suspected members of the Alvin Flores Robbery Group or the Rolex Gang blamed for the heist on a Rolex shop in Greenbelt 5 in Makati City.
This as Philippine National Police (PNP) Regional Office chief Lani-o Nerez conducted a “surprise inspection” of the shootout site -- a beachside compound in Barangay Estaca, Compostela, Cebu on Friday afternoon.
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“I wanted to see the area. I also want to ascertain why the group was here. I am now coordinating with our office in Manila and with the NBI if the group indeed had any intentions of doing something here,” Nerez said.
Nerez added that they are checking if the group was involved in any of the robberies in Cebu, although he said most of the robbery gangs who operate in Cebu were based in Ozamis City.
Nerez said they were alerted after the heist to be on the lookout because the gang was known to go to places like Cebu, Davao and Iloilo to wait for the situation to cool before returning to Manila to strike again.
Undercover agents also monitored the group’s movements, noticing that they would leave sometimes one at a time or in pairs and would never be together in that place for very long.
Malacañang lauded the NBI and the police for the successful operation, which resulted in the killing of Flores, its leader, and three members.
NBI special investigator Arnel Pura identified the fourth slain person as Roger Belmonte Sanchez of Camarines Sur. Pura said confirmation came from a dossier kept at the NBI Reaction, Arrest and Interdiction Division (Raid) office in Manila.
Ritchie Hijapon and Mark Alejandro Bondoc Salamanca are among the fatalities.
A fifth member, Rene Batiancila, is under NBI custody and is scheduled for transport to Antipolo, Rizal, where he has an illegal possession of firearms case.
Witness
Meanwhile, a resident living beside the compound where the shootout took place detailed what happened hours before the shooting began, including how two persons he now realizes were undercover NBI agents surveyed the compound where the robbery group has been holed up since Monday.
“There were two of them, a young man and a young woman. They came to me asking about places to stay in Estaca, particularly the one beside us,” said Sacarias Castro, 81, in Bisaya.
Gunfire, Castro recalled, rang out around 5 p.m. Thursday.
“I initially thought somebody was celebrating his birthday nearby and ignited pyrotechnics. It went on for about five minutes and I remember starting to think that was too long for pyrotechnics,” he said.
The NBI team, composed of agents from the NBI Central Visayas and operatives from the NBI Raid from Manila, gained entry into the compound through a small street, which leads to the pathway for Castro’s own beach-front home that was near a small sari-sari store.
From the pathway, agents had an unobstructed line of fire towards the front of duplex unit the gang had occupied.
Head Agent Roel Bolivar, who led the contingent from Raid, said agents began taking fire as soon as they were visible, speculating that the gang members must have noticed them at the side entrance.
They said they engaged the outnumbered suspects who then tried to move towards the beach by making use of the gap between the perimeter wall and the outer wall of the duplex.
The agents broke off into three teams, one pursuing the gang members toward but not into the corridor between perimeter wall and the duplex, the other moving towards the beach and taking a position that gave them a clear line of fire at the suspects if they emerged from the corridor.
Ammo
The third team, composed mainly of Central Visayas agents, went toward the water, ready to intercept those that might try to make a swim for it. It was this unit that subdued and took Batiancila, the sole survivor, into custody.
The autopsy report on the casualties was not yet available as of Friday.
However, the NBI-Central Visayas’ ballistics unit confirmed recovery of 16 pieces of 5.56 mm fired shells, as well as the M16 rifle it was fired from and which still had four cartridges in its 20-round box magazines, near where Flores body was found.
They also recovered six fired shells fired separately from two recovered .45 cal. pistols, and four empty 9mm shells fired from the KG9 machine pistol that they also recovered from one of the dead.
“The pistols did not have any serial numbers on them,” a source from the ballistics unit said.
Batiancila was not armed when he was taken into custody.
Bolivar, in an interview after the incident, said the NBI follows slightly different “rules of engagement” when implementing warrants of arrests against “sensitive targets” – those they know will resist arrest and have the capacity to harm law enforcement officers.
“The way you implement a search warrant of for armed robbery groups just has to be different from the way you implement a search warrant against somebody wanted for estafa,” he said.
Targets
He added that law enforcement must also secure themselves when running after such targets.
Radio reports had assailed the manner with which the NBI carried out the arrest, raising among others how they were shut out of the operation and how the agents from Manila wore masks.
NBI-Central Visayas Director Medardo de Lemos has pleaded for understanding, stressing how dangerous the operation was.
He said the agents also didn’t allow entry after the incident because the crime scene needed to be secured.
As far as the masks are concerned, he said, this is to protect the identity of the agents.
An NBI agent who asked not to be named said the gang has been under continuous surveillance since before they arrived in Cebu.
Agents from Manila followed them from one point in Luzon where they boarded a bus and hit the road towards Ormoc, where two NBI agents, had been waiting.
Tailed
From Ormoc, the two Central Visayas agents tailed the gang to Cebu and up to the duplex where they were holed up.
“The Raid agents have been here since Sunday but we did not want to move until we got all of them into that one place,” the operative said.
That opportunity, he added, finally came Thursday afternoon.
Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said the neutralization of the gang only proves that crime does not pay.
Remonde made the statement as Malacañang lauded the joint PNP and NBI units for the successful operation.
“We would like to commend the joint NBI and PNP team for immediately neutralizing this notorious criminal element and in so doing I think we have send the message that crime does not pay and criminals cannot evade the long arms of the law,” he said.
(Karlon N. Rama/With reports from MEA/Sunnex)
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