Guard’s role in bank rob deepens

CEBU CITY — The security guard who admitted helping robbers gain entry into the Metrobank’s Ramos Maxilom branch in last Wednesday’s early morning heist may have had a far greater participation than he had acknowledged.

A police paraffin test on guard Joel Empiedad showed him positive for gunpowder residue, suggesting he fired a gun recently and leading police to suspect he was the one who might have killed the bank’s night duty guard Alejandro Puza.

Empiedad has denied firing any gun in the course of the robbery, saying he was surprised why he tested positive for gunpowder burns.

Empiedad and Puza belonged to the same security agency, apparently the reason why Puza, who was still on duty at the time, did not hesitate to let Empiedad into the still closed bank, not knowing he was in cahoots with the robbers who were just waiting outside.

"I am now more convinced that he may be the one who shot his fellow guard Puza," said police theft and robbery section head Narciso Ouano upon learning about the paraffin test results.

Empiedad has implicated five others in the heist, including Nicolas Faran, a former barangay captain of Poog, Toledo City, who, he said, was the alleged mastermind behind the robbery, which bank officials later clarified involved the loss of only P500,000, not P2 million as reported earlier.

Metrobank branch manager Emma Salvador, who came in shortly before the bank was to open at 9 a.m., was tied up by the robbers as well as the other employees as they came in.

Empiedad claimed that he fired a gun several weeks ago with a friend to test some new bullets.

He implied that because he was just nearby, some of the gunpowder from the shot fired by one of the robbers to silence Puza might have tainted his hand.

Ouano, however, said Empiedad’s theory does not hold water because he tested positive on both hands.

In Toledo City, Vice Mayor Aurelio Espinosa urged Faran, who has apparently gone into hiding, to give himself up. — Freeman News Service