An 18-year-old woman and her 16-year-old boyfriend were arrested in Alcoy town after allegedly stealing pieces of jewelry, worth a total of about P2 million, from their employer who owns a seafood restaurant in barangay Mahayahay, Lapu-Lapu City, last Thursday.
The arrested suspects were Maricel Joy Moreno, alias “Irene”, a native of Negros Occidental, while her juvenile boyfriend is a resident of barangay Guiwang in Alcoy town.
Alcoy policeman, PO3 Allan Medel, said the boy had been a worker of the Mana Sutukil restaurant, owned by couple Geremias and Lydia Lim, while the woman had been employed as a house helper of the victims.
The theft was discovered at 5 p.m. last Thursday when Lim found her bag was no longer in her room where she earlier placed it. The bag contained pieces of jewelry and cash from their business earnings.
The Lim couple also learned that Moreno and her boyfriend were no longer in the house, prompted them to suspect that the two could have stolen the bag and escaped with it.
The victims immediately reported the theft to the Lapu-Lapu Police Station which, upon learning that the boy was an Alcoy native, coordinated with the Alcoy Police to verify if the suspects were there.
Alcoy policemen responded and went to the house of the boy. It was there that they saw the victim’s bags containing earrings, bracelets and necklaces —all worth P102,000— pairs of earrings worth P3,000, a gold necklace worth P35, 000, a bracelet worth P28,000 and two Fossil watches worth P13,000 each. The rest is the loot was in cash.
The police are still doing follow-up investigation to recover the other stolen items. —Joy Kareen T. Saliente/RAE
