Robbers hit pawnshop,
flee with P1M in jewelry
BY ADRIAN NEMES III

In one minute and 15 seconds, about P1 million in jewelry were gone after five armed men and a woman, believed to be members of the Ozamis robbery group, robbed a pawnshop at downtown Bacolod at about 9 a.m. Saturday.

A closed circuit television camera showed that the suspects entered the F & C Pawnshop and Jewelry Store through its front and back doors and immediately disarmed guards Rommy Abol and Federico Defensor of the Counterpoint Security Agency, city police officer-in-charge, Senior Supt. Edgardo Ordaniel, said yesterday.

They then ordered the guards and the five pawnshop employees to lay face down on the floor, smashed the glass of the display cabinets with tire ranges and tube pipes, gathered the jewelry, and escaped on board a maroon Nissan Escapade van, Ordaniel said.

ECJ beefs up support
for Alvarez team
NAMES PREFERRED
SENATORIAL CANDIDATES
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Business tycoon Eduardo Cojuangco was in Negros Occidental during the weekend to provide further support to Nationalist People’s Coalition candidates in the province, led by Vice Governor Genaro Alvarez Jr.

Cojuangco, NPC founder, also asked for support for the senatorial candidates he is backing in the May polls, during his weekend meetings in the province, DAILY STAR sources said yesterday.

He met with Manuel Lamata, president of the United Sugar Producers Federation of the Philippines, who committed the support of the workers on his farm to the gubernatorial bid of Alvarez, Pulupandan Mayor Magdaleño Peña said.

Senatorial candidate Juan Miguel Zubiri yesterday apologized to Jewel May Lobaton, estranged wife of Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, for stating on national television that she was a battered wife.

Zubiri, who issued the apology on his Facebook page, and informed the DAILY STAR about it, said “I wish to humbly apologize to Jewel for the pain that I have caused for bringing this issue out in the public during a heated exchange on a televised senatorial debate last week. It was not my intention to hurt her feelings and that of her children”.

Lobaton, who is from Bacolod City, is a former Bb. Pilipinas-Universe first runner up and Miss MassKara Queen 1993.