Barely four days after the break-in of the house of Guindulman Mayor Fe Anaña Piezas, two of the three suspects were captured by pursuing policemen solving the five-day old robbery in record time. Carted away from the evening robbery was P600,000, a sizable amount among robbery cases pulled off in recent memory in the province of Bohol. The two suspects were nabbed the other day while a third suspect remains the object of a massive police manhunt. Guindulman police chief PInsp Romeo Jamero said they are now in custody Ralph Timbal and Dizon Timbal, all of legal age, from nearby barangay Bato, who were positively identified by a woman helper to be the robbers who entered the mayor’s residence in barangay Guinacot at about 7 Monday evening. Mayor Piezas and her husband, retired municipal health officer Ernesto Piezas were not in the house during the incident.

The arrest of the two suspects came after the Provincial Intelligence Branch (PIB), the Special Operations Group (SOG) and elements of the Guindulman Police Station jointly conducted the pursuit operation banking on information provided to them by house helper Cherry Mae Amora. The helper, during the initial investigation said she did not recognize the identities of the suspects since they wore bonnets. All witnesses in the house also said they could not look closely at the suspects out of fear since the robbers were armed. Upon further investigation, it was noted that Amora appear to know the suspects based on some alleged text messages on her cellphone. Scene of the crime operatives also noted that the robbers did not ransack the whole house but directly went into the masters’ bedroom and took the cash tucked underneath the bed mattress. Initial investigation findings led to the possibility that it was an inside job.

Taken were P600,000 cash and the heist was over in less than ten minutes. The helper, suspected as accessory to the crime, is now eyed as principal witness in the complaint readied for filing against the two arrested suspects and the still at large unidentified third companion. This was not the first time helpers of the mayor were tagged as suspects in alleged crimes involving money matters. Earlier, the mayor also filed a criminal complaint against another woman helper who allegedly defrauded her close to P2M money while designated as cashier of her piggery business. The case is still under litigation at the Regional Trial Court, Branch 50, in Loay.