Caloocan mayor vows arrest of pandesal boy’s mugger

MANILA, Philippines - Caloocan City Mayor Oscar Malapitan yesterday vowed to put in jail the man who robbed a 12-year-old boy selling pandesal last Tuesday.

Malapitan said he had ordered city police chief Senior Superintendent Ariel Arcinas to look for witnesses who can help identify the suspect who divested the boy of his P200 earnings.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said the boy was traumatized and would undergo psycho-social debriefing.

DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman said his family would be included in the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.

Malapitan visited him yesterday and gave him a bicycle.

Police have invited a man for questioning and presented him to the boy, but he said he was not the one who robbed him.

Arcinas said the incident was caught on a closed-circuit television camera at a nearby establishment but the footage was not clear enough to identify the suspect.

A viral video of the boy crying on the sidewalk minutes after he was robbed by an unidentified man has sparked outrage among netizens.