PNP BOSS LINKS UBAY COP TO ROB
Theft of P20M worth
of equipment bared

Armed with acetylene cutters and cylinder tanks, some 15 persons swooped down in three separate occasions on a compound of heavy equipment in barangays Bulilis and Hambabauran all in Ubay town and carted away P20 million worth of cut up metal parts.

The metal parts were cannibalized from the SCP Construction motorpool in the two Ubay barangays and sold as scrap to undetermined number of scrap iron buyers in Cebu. The construction company maintained two equipment yards in Ubay after it won a sub-contract from Hanjin Construction Company to undertake the lateral canals construction of the Bayongan Dam.

According to Ismael Malagar, administrative manager of the Butuan-based construction company, a total of nine heavy equipment including a prime mover worth P2million were cut up into pieces and sold as scrap in Cebu City.

When recovery efforts were made by company officials, only P200,000 worth of scrap metals were found in a junk shop along Gen. Maxilom Extension owned by a certain Natalio Lauron.

The bulk of the stolen heavy equipment parts was nowhere to be found although it was believed that they are stockpiled or sold to other junk shops in Cebu.

A Chinese financier was said to be behind this large scale pilferage of heavy equipment parts.

During the motorpool raid, the suspects numbering 15 reportedly consumed 30 cylinder tanks to fuel the cutting operations of the nine heavy equipment into bits and pieces of junk..

Also taken away by the suspects in the chop chop operations were tires and engines of the heavy equipment. An inventory of all the equipment found
in the two construction sites showed that aside from the prime mover, a traxcavator Caterpillar 980, sheepfoot roller, tandem roller, elevated backhoe, two other backhoes, drilling machine and electric transformer were cannibalized.

A KLD 95 payloader was also stripped of all its major parts except its tires and engine.

The cannibalized payloader was what remains of the entire fleet after Ubay policemen led by SPO2 Ferdinand Vergara caught the suspects in the act of loading the cut up parts to a boom truck. Days later, the truck was found in barangay Tagum, Trinidad town minus its illegal load.

It was gathered that the boom truck loaded with the cut up pay loader parts including its huge bucket was at the Himbabawod compound when SPO2 Vergara intercepted the scrap parts. The policeman was with Rogelio Beltran, SCP purchaser..

The suspects attempted to load the giant engine of the payloader but was stopped by the responding policeman.

Subsequent events showed that there were negotiations between the suspects and the policeman to unload the stolen cargo.

Since it was almost lunchtime, the policeman and company representative went to barangay Lomangog to take their lunch leaving behind the suspects and the loaded boom truck. Fifteen minutes later, the boom truck and the suspects were gone.

Among the other suspects according to the Ubay police who were alleged to have a hand in the whole caper were identified as a certain Dondon, Mario Java, Ramil Caneda, driver of the boom truck, and the three policemen including the Ubay police chief.

Supt. Saavedra was linked to the raid of the SCP compound by the provincial PNP director after the police chief failed to seize the stolen items when he was ordered to do so.

Supt. Ingking, in his own affidavit, directed Police Supt. Saavedra to attend to the problem with dispatch and ensure that those responsible for the theft including those who are in possession of firearms are arrested if found out to be unauthorized to possess the same more so that it happened during the election ban.

Eyewitnesses accounts during the three occasions that the two compounds were burglarized of its fleet of equipment indicated the presence of armed men supposedly guarding the whole operations. .

The Ingking affidavit further narrated that instead of Saavedra acting to stop the pilferage of the heavy equipment compound, he only let SPO2 Vergara do the explanation to the provincial PNP director.

For his failure to arrest the suspects, it came into the mind of Supt. Ingking the possibility of Saavedra being involved in the conspiracy with the suspects.

As a result, Supt. Ingking relieved Saavedra from his Ubay assignment and posted him on floating status at the Camp Dagohoy headquarters.