UNSAFE STREET

It was a long day for call center agent Loraine Temple, and she was walking the darkened streets of Cebu City shortly before 3 a.m. on Wednesday to catch a jeepney ride home when tragedy struck.

Temple, 37, has reached Pope John Paul Avenue in Barangay Mabolo at 2:50 a.m. after walking the over a kilometer distance from the Cebu IT Park in Barangay Apas when two men on a motorcycle blocked her way to announce a holdup.

When Temple refused to hand over her bag, and they grappled over it, one of the suspects aimed a gun at her and fired.

Temple suffered a gunshot wound on her chest. She died on the spot.

Loraine Temple

Chief Insp. Dindo Juanito Alaras, Mabolo Police Station chief, said Temple was on her way to the area in Barangay Mabolo where jeepneys bound for Lapu-Lapu City were waiting for passengers.

“Gikan ni siya trabaho sa IT Park. Pauli na na siya. Mosakay siya og jeep sa may simbahan dapit,” said Alaras.
(She came from work at IT Park. She was heading home. She was supposed to ride a jeepney near the Mabolo Church.)

Witnesses’ account
Temple was only meters away from her usual spot for riding a jeep when she was killed.

Alaras said that according to witnesses, Temple resisted the robbers, which prompted the suspects to shoot her.

“Ni-resist gyud ang biktima. Ingon pa ang mga witness nga nagbinirahay pa sila sa bag,” said Alaras.
(The victim resisted. According to some witnesses, the victim and the suspects were grappling over the bag.)

A witness, who requested anonymity, told Cebu Daily News that he and his companion were also walking along the avenue when they saw Temple and heard her shouting for help.

They thought that Temple was just having a quarrel with her partner in the middle of the road.

“Among gidool kay nagsige man siya og siyagit og tabang. Pag dool namo gipusil man siya. Nanago na lang mi para sa among seguridad usab,” the witness said.
(We approached her because she was shouting for help. When we were already near her, she was shot by one of the suspects. We hid ourselves for our security.)

He said Temple, even while wounded, held on to her bag before the suspects forcibly grabbed it from her.

He said that the two suspects were wearing helmets, but these did not fully cover their faces.

However, he said, he did not see the plate number of the motorcycle.

A tracker team was created to identify and locate the suspects, Alaras said.

Same suspects?
The Mabolo police were now investigating if the assailants who robbed and killed Temple were the same suspects who also robbed two Taiwanese nationals at the nearby M.J. Cuenco Avenue, also in Barangay Mabolo, last week.

Alaras said they believed that only one group was responsible for the two separate incidents.

“Kini base ni sa ilahang estilo sa pagpanulis (This is based on the way they robbed their victims),” said Alaras.

Last Sept. 26, two Taiwanese nationals were robbed just in front of the bank where they withdrew a large amount of cash.

The foreigners, identified as Pien Shu Ching and Felipe Co Tan, had just left the bank past 3 p.m. when they were robbed at gunpoint.

The robbers also fired a shot at the two foreigners after the security guard of the bank tried to help. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

However, the robbers were able to flee with over P1 million in cash they took from the foreign nationals.

A strong woman
Hazel Namit, Temple’s co-worker at a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company based in the Cebu IT Park, said the victim had been driving her own car but there were times such as last Wednesday that she would commute to and from work.

“Molakaw gyud na siya (from IT park) hangtod sa iyang sakayan. Form of exercise daw niya,” said Namit.
(She would usually walk from IT Park to the jeepney stop in Mabolo Church. It was her form of exercise.)

Namit said they had been warning Temple to always be vigilant and take precautions since the victim would often walk alone, and at dawn.

“Sigehan na namo siya og ingon nga mag-amping kay siya ra usa maglakaw. Pero ana siya kaya ra daw niya. Nag Muay Thai daw siya,” said Namit.
(We kept telling her to be very careful since she was always alone when going home. But she always told us not to worry, as she could take care of herself since she knew Muay Thai.)

Muay Thai, or Thai boxing, is a centuries-old cultural martial arts of Thailand that uses the entire body as a weapon in hand-to-hand combat.
Namit was interviewed at the St. Francis Memorial Chapel on N. Bacalso St., Cebu City, yesterday where the remains of Temple were brought.

Namit said she went there to personally check if the remains were those of Temple after she heard news reports that the victim was identified as a certain Loraine.

The police had earlier identified Temple from the identification card that was found inside a wallet which was in the pocket of her pants.

According to Namit, Temple was not from Cebu, and her family in Zamboanga City was still to be notified of her death at the time of the interview yesterday morning.

More deployment
Since this was the second robbery in Barangay Mabolo in just a span of two weeks, Chief Supt. Debold Sinas, the director of Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), ordered a review in the shifting of the deployment of police personnel on the streets in Cebu City.

“I heard from city director (Senior Supt. Royina Garma) nga naay naka deploy adtong tungura pero nataymingan nga naa pud girespondehan somewhere else. So I ordered nga tan-aw-on ang deployment para dili na ni ma usab,” said Sinas.
(I heard from city director that there was a patrol team deployed in the area but it just happened that they were responding to another crime alarm somewhere else. So I ordered the reassessment of the deployment so that this incident will not happen again.)