Robbers make off with Cebu coal mining company’s payroll

CEBU CITY — Motorcycle-riding men robbed a daughter of a coal mining company’s owner and fled with P30,000 in payroll that she had just withdrawn minutes earlier from a bank in the city’s downtown area.

Tracy Go, daughter of Robert Go who owns the Adlaon Energy Development Corp., was in her van with her driver, Ruben Manolo, on their way back to their office on Espelita street in Barangay San Nicolas when she was robbed.

Shortly after reaching the corners of Gonzales and Lincoln streets, a red motorcycle without a license plate overtook their van and blocked their path.

Manolo told police investigator PO2 Jeffrey Diola that the two passengers of the motorcycle aimed their caliber .45 pistols at them and ordered him to leave the vehicle.

He said he was then made to lie on the road, while one of the robbers threatened to shoot him in the head if he moved.

Tracy initially refused to yield the bag containing the money. This prompted one of the robbers to break the window at the right side of the van, slap her and then grab the bag from her.

A witness, Nathan Engutan, a security guard of a warehouse in the area, said he thought the robbers were policemen arresting some suspects. But he wondered why they did not fire a warning shot.

Before the incident, he said he saw three other men riding on a green motorcycle that was used to ram the van to force it to stop.

Responding policemen failed to arrest the robbers who fled toward the Carbon area. Go did not call the police immediately after the incident; she first went to the hardware store of her brother, Jackson, before calling for police assistance.

Meanwhile, Mayor Tomas Osmeña, who went to Jackson’s hardware store, believes the robbers could have observed beforehand Go’s route every time she went to the bank.

Osmeña said he was glad no one was hurt in the incident. — Flor Perolina and Cristina Birondo/Freeman News Service