Two boys aged 13 and 11 were taken into police custody after they were identified as the ones who ransacked the office of the Social Security System (SSS) in Mandaue City where four laptops worth P23,000 each and an undetermined amount of cash were stolen.
The two boys admitted breaking into the SSS office.
They said the stolen items were with their cohort, who remains at large, said PO3 Victor Isidro of the Police Station 1.
Police apprehended the two at the house of the 13-year-old boy in sitio Maharlika, barangay Tipolo, Mandaue.
The theft was discovered by Ramil Sarsaba, the security guard of the SSS office.
Sarsaba told police that the glass door was already destroyed when he arrived at 5:55 a.m.
Melinfa Duazo, CEO II of SSS-Mandaue, said the laptop computers were in the drawers of the staffers, who also lost personal money kept inside. Police said the intruders entered the office by destroying the glass door padlocks with a bolt cutter.
Rogelio Banguiran, a r maintenance worker, said he was the last person to leave the office last Thursday. He recalled locking the door before he left.
Banguiran has been working in the office since 2005, the same year that the branch opened.
Banguiran said the office had long been requesting for the installation of a roll-up metal shutter to reinforce the door and glass walls, but it was turned down by the SSS head office.
The last request was made last year after the adjacent office of a food processing company was ransacked.
Emilyn Perez of CRD Security Agency said the guard assigned to secure the whole building heard a noise around 1 a.m. and noticed three boys walking away from the area.
Insp. Zenaido Sanchez said apart from not having a roll-up shutter, the office also had no security camera and no security guard assigned at night.
“This lock is not secured. It invites trouble. It can easily be destroyed,” he said in Cebuano..
The burglary delayed transactions with SSS clients, who waited in a long line before they were allowed to enter the office because of the police investigation. /With correspondent Norman Mendoza