A FORMER member of the junior basketball team was detained over the theft of another UST student’s cellular phone last Oct. 4.
Jesus Dante Barredo, 27, admitted during police investigation that he had stolen the phone, a Nokia 7360, of Maria Kariza Ylagan, a high school senior, said UST security chief Clemente Dingayan.
Barredo also made a similar admission in an interview with the Varsitarian at the Manila Police District’s Station 4.
“I was pressured because my family needed the money,” Barredo told the Varsitarian.
Barredo claimed he had been regularly getting financial support from Fr. Jerry Manlangit, O.P, former regent of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery.
Not finding the Dominican priest that day, he said he proceeded to the gymnasium where he took Ylagan’s bag. The victim, a member of the high school table tennis team, was in the thick of practice.
A check with the ABS-CBN website showed that Barredo had been arrested for a similar offense last year.
Barredo, now a taxi driver, played with the Tiger Cubs in 1995. He later played in the defunct Metropolitan Basketball Association before moving to the Philippine Basketball League.
A knee injury forced him to retire in 2002. Adrian T. Elumba and K. J. R. Liu
