Two kidnap victims rescued by police operatives in southern Metro Manila cities

By Ronron
March 4, 2008

Two kidnap victims were rescued by police operatives last week, with the supposed P2 million ransom payment intact, an official said Tuesday.

Sr. Supt. Leonardo Espina, chief of the Police Anti-Crime and Emergency Response (PACER), identified the victims as Alberto Cabrera and Jerry Katigbak, both in their 40’s and of Molino in Bacoor, Cavite.

Espina said the two are half-brothers, with Cabrera engaged in the buy-and-sell of cars business.

Espina said the two are aboard Cabrera’s Toyota Fortuner sports utility vehicle (SUV) in Muñoz, Quezon City in the morning of February 26 when unidentified armed men commandeered their vehicle.

They were then taken to the suspects’ safehouse in BF Homes, Parañaque City, where Cabrera was asked by his captors later in the evening to call his wife and prepare the Official Receipt and Certificate of Registration (ORCR) of their SUV and his passbook.

“The suspects were interested in both getting ransom money and the SUV,” Espina said.

After receiving the call, Cabrera’s wife sought help with the PACER for possible entrapment operation, Espina said.

On the following day, at 2pm, Espina said the wife received again a call from the suspects and directed her to go to SM South Mall in Las Piñas City with the car’s document and Cabrera’s passbook.

But when the wife was already on her way to SM South Mall together with PACER operatives, she received a call again from the kidnappers, instructing her to proceed instead to Trinoma Mall in Quezon City.

This, after the kidnappers learned from Cabrera that the passbook was actually in the SUV. Thus, they brought Cabrera to the said bank to withdraw money, although only the victim got inside.

“It was the ransom demand of the kidnappers to withdraw all the money in Alberto’s account with the SM South Mall branch of China Bank,” Espina said.

At around 2:30 pm, the PACER operatives who went to China Bank in SM South Mall noticed Cabrera go out of bank. “When nobody approached Cabrera to take the ransom, PACER operatives rushed to rescue the victim. The ransom was recovered intact,” Espina said.

Cabrera then led the PACER operatives to the suspects’ safehouse in BF Homes to rescue Katigbak. However, while still on their way, they spotted the SUV of Cabrera being driven by the suspects.

“After a brief chase, the SUV was abandoned by the kidnappers in the parking lot of a fastfood store and victim Katigbak was rescued unharmed past 4pm,” Espina said.

Espina said Katigbak claimed that the suspects escaped on foot.

In the debriefing, the two victims claimed that the suspects numbered no less than seven and they were armed only with short firearms, Espina said.

Judging from the refusal of the suspects to immediately approach Cabrera upon his emergence from the bank, Espina described them as “amateurs” since they manifested panic.

In a separate statement yesterday, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Avelino Razon, Jr. said that he has “ordered the PACER to continue follow-up operations with the cooperation of the victims and their family, to identify and arrest the suspects.”

“Should the victims and their family feel the need for police protection, we will be glad to provide them with appropriate security,” Razon said./DMS