AS the crowd cheered the winners of a beauty pageant, a woman was robbed of more than half a million pesos worth of cash and jewelry right in the middle of the event held at the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) at past 11 p.m. last Thursday.
The 65-year-old victim named Carmelita Seno, a resident of A.C. Cortes, barangay Cambaru, Mandaue City, was the chairperson of the beauty and search committee of the Mandaue City Queen, Prince and Princess pageant.
Mandaue City police said the victim attended the coronation ceremony and left her bag containing the cash and jewelry under a chair along with other committee members.
It was only after the coronation ceremony that Seno discovered that her bag was missing.
The bag contained one men’s gold karat ring worth P300,000, P15,000 cash, one gold necklace with pendant worth P150,000 and three cell phones worth P30,000.
Also in the bag were one lady’s diamond-encrusted ring worth P30,000 and two pairs of earrings worth P2,000.
She reported the robbery to the Centro police precinct personnel headed by Insp. Alexander Nunez, the precinct deputy chief.
Centro police and Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) members inspected the people coming in and out of the CICC but was unable to locate the bag and the thief.
Insp. Nunez said they viewed the closed-circuit TV (CCTV) footage and spotted the suspect.
He said Seno positively identified the bag carried by the suspect as her own.
The suspect, clad in a green T-shirt, jeans and white rubber shoes and carried a black backpack, fled on foot to an unknown direction.
Nunez said the suspect went near some of the committee members and asked if there’s an actor or an actress prior to the robbery.
Seno’s bag was with several bags owned by the committee members. Seno said some of the jewelry belonged to her husband.
The CCTV footage will still undergo enhancement to better identify the suspect and enable police sketch artists to draw a physical profile on him.
Chief Insp. Rex Lomente, deputy chief of the Investigation and Detection Management Branch (IDMB) in Mandaue City Police Office (MCPO), said they are pursuing various suspects in the case.