naunsa naman ni... kaluoy gyud sa among Virgen sa Regla diri sa Lapu-Lapu City....
CEBU CITY -- An image of the Virgin of the Rule was stripped of jewelry by burglars in Lapu-Lapu City Wednesday dawn, a week after devotees observed the feast of the City’s patroness.
Fr. Agustin Pulong, who is in charge of the Nuestra Señora de Regla Parish National Shrine in Barangay Poblacion, said the burglars took away 69 necklaces, 70 rings and 16 bracelets.
The burglars also opened the donation box below the image and stole an unknown amount, leaving only coins and a few small bills.
A security guard and two utility workers discovered the burglary past 3 a.m.
The parish could not estimate the value of the stolen jewelry items because these were donated by private individuals, Pulong told reporters.
The police are looking into the possibility that an insider took the jewelry or helped the thieves as there were no signs of forced entry.
Inspector Christian Torres, chief of the Theft and Robbery Section of the Lapu-Lapu City Police Office, said they may request the parish employees to undergo a polygraph test.
Torres said they are also looking at the workers who repainted the church a few weeks ago as possible suspects.
“Among gisubay ron kung kinsa to ang mga namintal (We’re now tracing the persons who worked on the repainting of the church),†he told Sun.Star Cebu.
Based on their initial investigation, Torres said the burglary was done by two persons or more.
Torres said the laborers who repainted the church knew how to enter the church through the ceiling.
Hole
The burglars may have gained access to the shrine, which is located at the back of the main church, through a hole in the ceiling near the campanario (bell tower).
Torres said a parish official estimated the value of the stolen jewelry to be not less than P500,000.
It was the second burglary in the shrine, said Pulong, who has been in-charge of the shrine since August. The first burglary happened in the 1990s.
Pulong said he is not familiar with the stolen jewelry but some of the pieces were made of gold.
The burglars spared the silver crown of the image. Pulong said the image has a gold crown, but they only use this when the image is taken out for the procession, held a day before the feast.
Remains
The burglars also left three rings, four jade bracelets and a pair of earrings. But they took away donations collected from Sunday to Tuesday. To get the jewelry, they removed one of the glass panels encasing the original image of the Virgin of the Rule.
The glass was taken by the Scene of the Crime Operatives (Soco) yesterday to examine some fingerprints.
Soco is also getting fingerprints from the parish employees, including the four security guards and three utility workers.
The shrine has a security camera but it stopped working last October.
“We were supposed to have the CCTV (closed circuit television) fixed this week,†said Pulong in Cebuano, adding he would suggest that the CCTV be replaced with a new one.
Bad news
Even though parish officials said the CCTV is no longer working, Torres said they will still send IT experts to examine the CCTV.
Pulong and Fr. Fabian Cayetano, another parish official, were awakened yesterday dawn by the news that the shrine was burglarized.
Hiram Miranda, 29, the guard on duty at the time, reported the incident to the Police Station 3 around 3:20 a.m.
Miranda and utility workers Rogelio Cogal and Virgilio Camposo opened the shrine past 3 a.m. and noticed that the glass on the left side of the image had been forcibly removed.
The guard’s shift started at 10 p.m. and ended at 6 a.m.
Familiar
Pulong said the culprits seemed to be very familiar about the image and the shrine.
“Di ko makasulti kung naay inside job. Huwat na lang ta sa police (I could not say whether it was an inside job. Let’s just wait for the result of the police investigation),†he said.
Pulong said he would pray that the burglars will realize their mistake and return the jewelry.
Librando Aying, 42, one of the four parish security guards, said the burglars may have entered the shrine by crawling through the hole in the ceiling.
The wooden lock on the small door covering the hole was destroyed. Apart from that, he said, there were no signs of forced entry as the doors remained locked.
Donation
Aying, who has been working at the shrine for eight years, said they close the shrine around 7 p.m. every day.
Aying said the burglars removed the image’s crown to get the necklaces and put it back on afterward.
The donation box was pried open.
The police found marks made by shoes or slippers and fingerprints above the wooden door, but Insp. Torres said these could have been made by workers who repainted the church in preparation for the fiesta last week.
Fr. Jimmy Duero, the parish priest, is in Nueva Ecija attending the diamond jubilee celebration of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. He is expected to arrive in Lapu-Lapu today.
The parish is temporarily closing the shrine at the back of the main church. It will be opened to the public as soon as investigators finish collecting evidence.
“We condemn the act. We pray for the conversion of the one who perpetrated the crime,†Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma told reporters.
Mayor Paz Radaza, in her regular news conference, said she will leave the investigation to the police
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=59978.0