Navotas residents warned versus holdup men

The Navotas police warned yesterday the town’s residents against robbery and holdup gang members who pose as pedicab or tricycle drivers preying mostly on passengers who travel alone.

Erna Balasbas, 26, employee, and a resident of Phase 1-B, Block 7, Lot 19, Barangay North Bay Boulevard South (NBBS), Navotas, fell victim to the group’s modus operandi Saturday night.

Balasbas told police prober PO1 Randell Adora that at around 11:30 p.m., she was on her way home aboard a pedicab when she noticed that the driver suddenly swerved to a dimly lit portion of Bangus street.

But before she could complain, three unidentified men appeared from nowhere and blocked their path.

Armed with knives and a pen gun, the men announced the heist and divested Balasbas of her mobile phone worth P15,000, her wallet containing some P2,800 and her wristwatch valued at around P1,500.

The armed men fled with the pedicab driver after the incident.

Police said several pedicab and tricycle commuters, especially small-time fish traders, had fallen prey to the operation of the robbers cum drivers.

The cops advised commuters to be extra vigilant in riding these kinds of transportation particularly at night.

Meanwhile, in Malabon City Friday, police arrested tricycle driver Jonathan Lapuz, 34, after he was caught burying twin female fetuses on a vacant lot along the old railway in Barangay Tugatog.

Superintendent Moises Guevarra, Malabon City police chief, said that members of the Tugatog Barangay Peacekeeping Action Team (BPAT), led by Emmanuel Borja, informed his office that Lapuz, a resident of 714 A. Bonifacio street, Barangay Tugatog, was seen digging near the railway at around 3:30 p.m.

Police and PBAT operatives seized from the suspect a native basket containing the fetuses, aged around five months old.

Guevarra said that they are now hunting Lapuz’s accomplice to the crime and the mother of the fetuses so that appropriate charges could be filed against them.