Ex-military man nabbed for rob try
ROXAS CITY – A former military man was arrested by the police after a failed attempt to rob a branch of Western Union , a money remittance office, along Roxas Avenue here at around 10 a.m. on July 3.
The suspect, Fernando Mahinay, 44, is a former member of the Philippine Marines who was seriously injured in a gunbattle in Mindanao in the 1990’s.
As of presstime, Mahinay was detained at the Roxas City Police Station.
Mahinay claimed that he is a law-abiding resident of Brgy. Jolongahog, Pontevedra, Capiz, without record of any felony.
He said he was in Roxas to visit his friend, Harribel Patricio, and ask him to help him find a job. However, he does not know where his friend lives.
Mahinay, married and a father of two young children, said he does not know why he tried to rob the Western Union office . He said he only wanted to take a rest inside the establishment and then he realized that he was grappling with the security guard’s firearm and poked the gun on the man.
Investigation showed the suspect left his house early in the morning of July 3, to see Patricio, an owner of a security agency. Two weeks ago, his wife left for Manila to find work.
When told that Patricio was in Roxas City, he proceeded here, and asked a tricycle driver to take him to the Patricio residence, but the driver did not know where the Patricio residence is.
Witnesses said that before the incident, they saw the suspect talking to an auxiliary policeman managing the traffic along Roxas Avenue. Then he went to the Western Union office. Minutes later, they saw him running south of Roxas Avenue while a bloody security guard and teller were running after him, shouting “hold-upper.”
“We ran after him until we reached the front of a hardware store where he was cornered by a responding policewoman in plain clothes and by a police team on board a patrol car,” said Alexander John Frederick Arches, a Western Union teller.
Roxas City police officer Nanette Puasan and the team of Capiz Provincial Public Safety Company arrested Mahinay.