Armed men rob bank in Iloilo, 1 hurt

A bank teller was shot and wounded when a group of at least four robbers held up a bank in Iloilo City Monday evening. Radio dzBB's Iloilo affiliate on Tuesday reported the incident occurred at the East-West Bank branch in the city shortly after 6 p.m., with the robbers fleeing on a taxi. But police said they are looking into the possibility of an inside job because the robbers seemed familiar with the bank’s floor layout. Also, the report said police are looking into information that the robbers may have been part of a gang operating in Metro Manila. The Office of the city mayor has given police 48 hours to crack the case. An initial investigation showed three armed men poked a gun at the outgoing security guard and disarmed the incoming one. They shot teller Karen Valasote, 22, in the left leg when she tried to resist, the report said. A report on Western Visayas-based news site The Daily Guardian said the gang included a woman. It cited city police chief Senior Superintendent Marietto Valerio as saying the female suspect asked assistance from the guard to operate the automated teller machine. When the guard opened the bank’s glass door to help the woman, the three male suspects rushed in and declared a holdup. Valerio ordered police to put up checkpoints in the city’s perimeter to prevent the suspects from escaping to the province. He also said they will check the closed-circuit television cameras of the bank to find out if they can get clues on the suspects’ identities. The East-West heist is the first bank robbery in Iloilo City since robbers divested more than P1 million from the Barotac Viejo rural bank in Jaro district on June 18, 2010. — LBG, GMANews.TV