2 women injured in Makati robbery

First posted 03:04:37 (Mla time) April 30, 2007
DJ Yap
Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines -- Four men clad in “polo barong” staged a daring daylight robbery at a bakeshop in Makati City Sunday, making off with the customers’ valuables and leaving two of them hurt.

According to the police, the suspects entered the Red Ribbon Bakeshop on Jupiter Street in Barangay Bel-Air at 10:44 a.m.

Wielding handguns, they announced a holdup and began taking customers’ possessions, including mobile phones and wallets, Giovanni Claro, the bakeshop’s operations manager, told investigators.

A customer, Michelle Yap, 46, of Diliman, Quezon City, resisted when the men grabbed her purse, prompting one of them to shoot her thrice, said SPO3 Arlene Randrup of the Police Community Precinct 9.

Yap was rushed to the Makati Medical Center for wounds in the right chest, right armpit and left thigh. Randrup, however, said that the victim has been declared out of danger.

Another suspect hit with a gun the hand of customer Dina Torralba Suarez after she refused to give up her laptop computer.

She was later brought to the nearby MTECH Hospital for minor bruises, Randrup told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The police officer said only the customers were robbed as the suspects did not try to open the cash register of the bakeshop.

According to witnesses, the four men left on board two motorcycles.

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Just wondering why the bakeshop was spared. I heard that Ms. Yap, who belongs to a prominent family, was the real target.