MANILA, Philippines — The quick response of police to an alarm foiled an attempt to rob a commercial bank’s branch at Philcoa in Diliman, Quezon City early Saturday morning.
Chief Superintendent Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, Quezon City Police District director, said personnel of Station 9 in Anonas responded around 2:40 a.m. to an alert from the Bank of Commerce about a security breach at its Diliman branch.
The responding officers found a hole in the rear wall of the bank and digging tools. Searching an adjacent vacant lot, they apprehended two “persons of interest” trying to flee the area.
Eleazar said the suspects apparently belong to what he called the “termite gang,” whose method usually involves using sewers to tunnel their way into target establishments. However, explained that the robbers apparently were forced to break in through the wall for lack of an underground access.
The suspects managed to disable the closed circuit television system, but not before it had taken footage of them, thus alerting the bank’s central office, which then called up the police.
Eleazar also said the robbers managed to open a vault but this contained documents, not money.
