Isabela town loses payroll to robbers

AGLIPAY, Quirino — At least P1.7 million intended for the salaries of municipal employees of Dinapigue, Isabela was stolen from the town treasurer in Quirino province on Wednesday, police reported yesterday.

Quirino police chief Superintendent Manuel delos Reyes identified the Dinapigue treasurer as Judie Palitayan, who was held up by five bonnet-wearing armed men along an isolated stretch of a mountain road in Barangay Disimungal in Nagtipunan, Quirino.

Dinapigue is one of Isabela's remote coastal towns and can only be reached via roads passing through Nagtipunan, Quirino or Baler, Aurora.

Palitayan was with her husband town councilor Jonas Palitayan; driver Felipe de Guzman; utility worker Dennis Tumaning and one Ms Villareal, when the robbers blocked their vehicle and divested them the payroll and other valuables.

Reyes said Palitayan withdrew the money from the Land Bank of the Philippines branch in Ilagan, Isabela last Tuesday (Oct. 28).

Palitayan‘s group then spent the night in Ilagan, planning to return to Dinapigue via Nagtipunan, the shortest route back home.

Reyes said investigators are not discounting the possibility that the hold-up was part of conspiracy involving people who were aware that Palitayan's group was in possession of the town payroll.