Motel cheat falls

MANILA, Philippines - Independent film actor and alleged motel skipper Marco Gonzaga Saca, known by his screen name as Marco Morales, was arrested yesterday morning by police while allegedly trying to skip on paying his bills from a hotel along Makati Avenue.

Saca, alias James Long and Daniel Long, was nabbed at 4:32 a.m. at the St. Giles Hotel, said city police chief Senior Superintendent Manuel Lukban.

Lukban said the suspect had been placed under surveillance by the hotel’s security.

He said charges of estafa, concealment of true name, alarm and scandal, and disobedience on an agent of authority were filed against Saca with the Makati City prosecutor’s office.

The suspect was detained at the Makati police jail.

Earlier, charges of estafa, physical injuries and theft were filed by the Pasay City police against Saca for reportedly skipping on a P10,210 bill at a motel in Pasay City, stealing a television from the room and hitting an employee as he raced out of the motel in his Volvo sedan last June 11.

Saca left in the motel a US driver’s license that identified him as Marco Gonzaga Saca, of Malibu Hills, California.

Police confirmed that Saca and Morales are one and the same person after reviewing clips from the motel’s closed-circuit television cameras.