Monday, March 3, 2008

Thieves hit two government properties

Tabuk- City, Kalinga - Taking advantage of the work break, thieves ransacked two government properties in this city last weekend.

Sometime on the afternoon of February 9, the grade six room of the Bulanao East Elementary School (BEES) in Bulanao was ransacked with the culprits carting away 10 bags of Northern Cement and some steel bars worth P2,000.00.

BEES principal Henry Alunday and PTCA president Pedro Gayudan reported to the police that the thieves removed the nails which served as lock hinges of the main door.

Alunday and Gayudan brought along with them a grade six pupil of the BEES who revealed that he saw his older brother and two other students of the nearby Kalinga National High School hauling steel bars on the road below the school.

The boy further claimed that the three suspects tried to buy his silence with P75.00 but he declined the bribe.

The police said that the BEES authorities are now negotiating with the parents of the suspects for a possible amicable settlement of the case.

Abraham Gulingan, chief of the Agro-aqua Center Division (ACD) of the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist located at Purok 5, Bulanao reported that their bodega was broken into night of February 10 with the thieves taking away 32 bags of rice seeds.

Gulingan said that the thieves sawed off the two hasp plucks of the door to gain entry into the bodega. He added that 10 bags were eventually recovered in a rice mill in Bulanao Norte where the thieves sold part of their loot.

The rice seeds have a price tag of Pl,150.00 per bag.

Gulingan said that the ACD does not have a security guard because no provincial security personnel wants to be assigned there since 2006 when the living quarters in the compound was fired upon by unidentified men. Since the security office of the provincial government is not assigning any guard to the ACD, he has asked Bulanao barangay captain Virgilio Gunnawa to deploy tanods in the area at night. ** By Estanislao Albano Jr.