A THIEF was nabbed for the third time by a campus security guard, caught red-handed after attempting to steal from a College of Science student.
Anna Rose Romero, 21, was caught by guard-on-duty Cecilio Balunsat last Jan. 10 in front of a convenience store on Dapitan Street, snatching a pouch from the UST student, Guia Fernandez.
“My classmate and I were in front of Ministop [on Dapitan Street] when I stopped walking to talk to my classmate…then suddenly, the guard was already there talking to the girl [Romero]. She was holding my belonging and she hid it beneath her bag. My classmates also saw that she was holding it,” Fernandez said.
The pouch, whose content was not disclosed by UST Security office chief Joseph Badinas, was retrieved from Romero.
On June 22 last year, a security personnel from the University also caught Romero at the multi-deck carpark stealing a Nokia C3 phone and a wallet containing P1,400. The following month, on July 20, the suspect was again nabbed by UST security and has found to have stolen two mobile phones from students of the AMV-College of Accountancy.
Badinas said that Romero, a resident of Tondo, Manila, has a new strategy: she follows Thomasians outside the campus to avoid being captured by the UST security.
“She walks along with Thomasians on [Dapitan] Street, and does her plan after,” he said. “What Romero doesn’t know is that the guards monitor her because we are already familiar with her face.”
Records of the UST Security Office showed Romero was freed from detention only last Dec. 30 following a theft case. She was also detained by police in June last year because of a theft incident in UST.
Romero was brought to the University Belt Area Police Station at P. Noval Street, and was later sent to the Manila Police Station 4 in Balic-Balic for detention.
“She will still face charges of theft, but now with greater [sentence] because it was already her third [case] and the victim also filed a complaint [against her],” Badinas said.
