By CYRUS M. GARDE
BACOLOD City — Valuables worth almost half a million pesos had been stolen from the mayor’s office at the Bago City Hall, police said.
The suspects ransacked the office and took cameras, video cameras, a microphone and other equipment used in documenting events, with an estimated total worth of P490,000.
This incident could be another case of an inside job, authorities said, like the one in Escalante city hall last month wherein P2 million worth of cash and checks were taken.
A civilian watchman and a janitor have access to city hall keys, said Superintendent Arnel Arpon, Bago police chief.
Fourteen personnel from the mayor’s office and the budget office had been subject to fingerprinting.
Apron believed that two or more suspects were involved in the robbery; one person could not carry all the stolen items by himself.
Police said the incident was discovered at about 8:30 a.m. Sunday; the suspects may have broken into the office on Saturday evening or Sunday dawn.
They first entered the budget office and tried to open the vault using screws but failed, according to initial investigation by Scene of the Crime Operatives of the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office.
They proceeded to the mayor’s office and carted away the valuables, investigation showed.
Arpon said the suspects took advantage of the absence of closed-circuit television cameras at the city hall.
He asked the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to conduct a parallel investigation. The NBI had also been tapped in the probe of the Escalante heist.
Arpon disclosed that some city hall workers had to do overtime work on Saturday./PN
