Quezon City cops trace cab in Fil-Am student's robbery holdup

Quezon City policemen have traced the taxicab implicated in the robbery involving a visiting Filipino-American Harvard law student and taken into custody the cabbie, who was eventually identified by the victim as the one who robbed him.

Superintendent Franklin Moises Mabanag, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit of the Quezon City Police District, said they found the taxicab (TXE-427) at the house of its owner on Acacia Lane in Mandaluyong City Monday night.

Yesterday afternoon, victim Nathan Santos Smith went to the QCPD Headquarters at Camp Karingal and positively identified Penequito Gallardo as the driver of the taxicab that he boarded Sunday night.

Smith, 24, just arrived from California in the United States on Sunday and boarded the taxicab after he did not find anyone at the booth when he went at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport’s limousine service.

Smith was supposed to board a bus in Pasay City bound for Baguio to attend a relative’s wedding.

However, the cabbie drove him all the way to Cubao where he told the victim he would just pick up somebody before bringing him to the bus station.

But the cabbie’s cohort suddenly appeared in the area in front of Ali Mall and at gunpoint, divested the victim’s belongings.

 Smith lost his two cellular phones worth $1,150, a laptop worth $2,000, cash worth  $7,000, three luggages, his passport and credit cards and a small box containing a PlayStation Portable and other documents .

The suspects dropped him off along New York street, where he walked to report the incident to the nearby QCPD-Station 10.

Gallardo readily denied the allegations and said that at the time the robbery happened, which was at past 11 p.m., he was already at home in Manila and the vehicle was already at the garage of his employer in Mandaluyong.

The suspect’s employer, Celso Reyes, also defended Gallardo and said the cabbie was “a good person.”