Burglars take cop’s gun, homeowner’s valuables

CEBU, Philippines – A police officer and a pharmacist lost their belongings to unidentified men who separately broke into their homes in Talisay City on Sunday.

Senior Police Officer 1 Esperidion Espina, 36, personally appeared at the Talisay City Police Station yesterday to report that he lost his service firearm, some ammunition and other valuables.

Espina, who is assigned at the Provincial Public Safety Company, told Police Officer 3 Jason Del Campo of Talisay City police that he and his family left the house to attend the burial of a relative Sunday afternoon.

When they got back, however, he said the house was already in a state of disarray and that he could not find his .45 caliber firearm worth P25,000; 100 pieces of ammunition worth P1,200; a silver spoon collection worth P1,000 and gold wedding ring worth P2,500. The gun and the bullets were kept in a chest inside the bedroom.

Espina said he locked the door before they left. He believed that the suspect/s may have gained entry by destroying their window made of bamboo.

Police said Espina only managed to have the incident reported yesterday "kay basin nihimo siya og follow-up kun kinsa ang nangawat (maybe because he made his own follow-up investigation)."

Still in Talisay City, unidentified perpetrators took close to P100,000 worth of valuables from the house of a pharmacist in Nonoc Homes Subdivision in Barangay Tabunok.

Mary Joy Maranan, 35, immediately sought police assistance upon the discovery.

Police Officer 3 Ferdinand Pablo told The FREEMAN that the victim and her family left the house to spend New Year vacation with their relatives in Cordova town. When they returned on Sunday, some of the items in the house were already scattered on the floor.

Maranan said they lost a Rose Gold MK watch; two fossil watches; Anne Klien bracelet; O+ air phone; Nokia touch-screen cellular phone; Nokia qwerty pad; Cherry Mobile android phone; I-pod; P3,000 cash; and gold earrings.

The value of the items carted away could be somewhere around P97,000, she said.

Maranan told the police that the suspect/s used a tree branch to climb into the concrete fence, before jacking up the window grill to get inside the house.

"Mura’g nigamit ni og bata ning suspek kay gidak-on ra man sa bata ang masulod. Unya giligwat nila dayon ug mao na sab ang bata ang niabli sa laing suspek," Pablo said.

Maranan said their dogs failed to shoo away the suspects so one of the angles they are now looking at is the possibility of the perpetrators being familiar to their house.

Talisay City authorities are still conducting further investigation into the two burglary cases. (FREEMAN)