Construction workers charged for stealing copper wire

CEBU, Philippines – Two laborers of a construction firm in Cebu City have been charged with qualified theft before the Regional Trial Court the other day for stealing copper wires last month.

Emadiolito Aban and Jomar Pansit were ordered to post bail at P40,000 each after the Henry Oaminal Construction Company filed charges against them before the RTC.

Greg Anajes, the electrical engineer of the construction firm, said that Aban and Pansit are both stay-in workers in their construction firm.

He said that he saw both of them in the morning of June 26 carrying a backpack that made him suspect that they might be into something.

Anajes said that he called up the guard who, in time, confiscated the backpack when the two were about to leave the premises of the construction firm.

Anajes said that he conducted an ocular inspection on the actual losses of the construction materials and found out that the installed connection to their air conditioner had been cut off.

He said that they lost 74 cuts of copper wires estimated to cost P18,000 causing damage to their company.

Aban and Pansit executed a waiver of detention and were given until July 6 to submit their counter affidavit.

After they failed to do so, Prosecutor Dixon Fuentes forwarded the charges before the RTC.

Meanwhile, because of the rampant burglary in Carmen schools, an emergency meeting will be set tomorrow to be attended by the mayor and the heads of the concerned schools.

Insp. Carlos Reyes Jr., chief of the Carmen Police Station, said that they are to meet with Mayor Sonia Pua, the 21 barangay captains, chief tanods and school administrators.

He said that they are to tackle the rampant burglary in schools with the perpetrators targeting the schools’ computer units.

Upper Natimao-an Elementary School was burglarized last July 3. To date, the thieves remain unidentified.

The burglars reportedly used the stockroom as their entrance and destroyed the padlock of the main door later on when they started carting away the computer unit and its peripherals worth around P150,000.

Police officers believe that at least four people carried out the act.

Six days after, the computer of the Cantoong Elementary School estimated to be worth around P20,000 was stolen.

Police reportedly find it hard to establish the identities of the burglars. — Jasmin R. Uy and Gabriel C. Bonjoc/MEEV (THE FREEMAN)