Suspect in Fooda heist claims cops framed him

CEBU, Philippines - One of the eight men suspected of pulling off the March 9 Fooda Savers Mart robbery has accused the police of setting him up.

Roy Jose Quimada, through his lawyer Luisito Arma, yesterday submitted his counter-affidavit before the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office to formally deny the charges of robbery against him.

The police charged him with robbery after he was allegedly identified, through the police rogues gallery, by two of the security guards as one of those eight robbers who pretended to be policemen responding to an alarm.

Quimada, who claimed to be a second-year Law student of the Misamis University in Mindanao, said it has been his fear to fall prey to the shortcuts employed by the police in investigating crimes.

He said he had already sensed that with the series of unsolved robberies in Cebu City, people like him who have had brushes with the police in the past are likely to fall prey to the contemptuous vice of the police to employ shortcuts either to save face or preserve a career.

Quimada was allegedly implicated in another robbery and is out on bail.

Quimada said that in the last quarters of last year, he received several reports about the hostile behaviour against him from Theft and Robbery Section chief Michael Bastes.

In fact, he said there was one time when he was at his favorite in Cebu and Bastes allegedly came looking for him.

“If only officer Bastes and his parroting witnesses bothered to know more about me, they would have realized that as a bona fide 2nd year law student.., it is perfectly alien to my purpose as an aspiring vanguard of law to be in collision with the government for my dream to be a lawyer will forever be forfeited,” Quimada added.

He said it is impossible for him to have participated in the alleged robbery because he cannot afford to betray a friend who had once helped him when he experienced financial setbacks.

Quimada claimed that Jaimes Escalona, brother of the wife of one of the owners of Fooda Savers Mart, is a very close friend of his and is the godfather of his son.

Quimada surmised that the police pressured the guards into identifying him from the police rogues gallery as one of those who robbed the supermarket. 

He also said his real address is in Pagadian City, not Dipolog City.

“The police cannot feign ignorance about it since in their ultimate weapon of harassment they love to call rogues gallery, my true address appears therein,” Quimada said.

     Eight robbers who pretended to be policemen made off with a vault with over P100,000 in coins and assorted cellular phones from Fooda Savers Mart. — Fred P. Languido/BRP   (THE FREEMAN)