SOUTH COTABATO, Philippines - Thieves led by a policeman almost pulled off Tuesday what could have been their biggest heist in a multinational plantation where they have stolen six tons of pineapples in recent months.
PO3 Edwin Tabamo and his nine cohorts, also involved in peddling of methamphetamine hydrochloride, most known as shabu, were caught in the act of harvesting pineapples in a portion of the Dole plantation in Barangay Palkan in Polomolok, South Cotabato.
Tabamo belong to the Regional Service Company of the Police Regional Office 12 in Gen. Santos City.
Barangay folks confirmed the group had harvested in the past five months no less than six tons of pineapples from the scattered South Cotabato plantations of Dole, a large company exporting canned fruits to all four corners of the globe.
Also arrested along with Tabamo were Ronnie and Renato, both surnamed Seba, Joel Apitoong, Marvin Suarez, siblings Sandy, Joey and Ian Arostique, Joan Tamayo, Quinton Mahusay and Boyet Agustin.
The suspects were cornered by operatives of the Polomolok municipal police and combatants of the Army’s 27th Infantry Battalion while collecting pineapples in a secluded area in Barangay Palkan.
Barangay officials said it was only last Tuesday when Tabamo personally led his group in harvesting pineapples from the fruit farm, apparently in for a big heist.
The group was first monitored early Tuesday by barangay watchmen and plantation guards searching for ripe pineapples on board a van in a swath of adjoining farms owned by Dole.
The team that cornered Tabamo found freshly picked pineapples, assorted firearms, shabu and drug sniffing paraphernalia in their heavily tinted van.
Superintendent Jose Briones Jr., South Cotabato provincial police director, said the suspects are now detained, awaiting prosecution.
He said Tabamo and his accomplices will be charged with theft, possession of unlicensed guns and narcotics.
Briones said they will also work out Tabamo’s dismissal from the Philippine National Police via administrative proceedings.