A lot of you who are my Twitter / Plurk / Facebook friends may have already heard about what happened to me on March 9, at approximately 5:30PM at the parking lot of MC Home Depot at the Fort Bonifacio Global City.
But since not a lot of you know all the details, I’ll try to recall the events to the best of my abilities:
- I went to MC Home Depot to check out the boxing gym over there.
- I entered the MC Home rooftop parking at around 5:23pm.
- I was parked around 15-20 meters away from the guard on duty. And the line of sight between him and my car was unobstructed.
- I received a call from my mom who wanted to get some work related files from me.
- She told me to wait in the parking lot for her as she was just nearby. This was around 5:25pm
- While waiting for my parents to arrive, I decided to take my camera out and take some pictures of nearby buildings. I was on a roof top after all and I wanted to make the most out of the view.
- The guard on duty was looking at me taking pics, but made no comment.
- My parents finally arrived a little before 5:30pm. I stashed my camera at the back seat of my car, got out the files and gave them to my parents.
- After they left, I went down to the gym. After inquiring about the rates and amenities, I went back up again. My whole stay downstairs didn’t take more than 5 minutes.
- As I was entering the elevator, I noticed a suspicious looking guy looking at me in a strange way. (photo below)
- I went back up to get my gym bag, only to see that the rear passenger window of my car was smashed in and my backpack was gone along with my camera bag.
- I reported the incident to the guard on duty (name to follow. the notes are at home), and all he could do was stare at me blankly. I called him over to where my car was to show him the damage. He came over, took one look and went away because cars needed to exit the parking lot and he had to collect their parking tickets. It was around 5:35PM
- Already this struck me as infuriating, but I decided to stay calm. I tried calling the guard over again, only to repeat what happened: he’d look at the damage, but quickly walk away to let out the cars.
- I asked him to radio his officer because I felt I would not make any progress with this guy.
- The officer arrived, but he also didn’t know what to do. It was at this point that my parents and sister arrived.
- They too tried to talk to the security officers and explain to them the situation. We asked them why they didn’t proceed to check the trunks of the outgoing vehicles when the incident was reported. They kept insisting that their responsibilities in this post was to get the parking ticket stubs of the outgoing vehicles.
- We tried to explain to them (our voices were raised at this point) that it is part of their responsibilities to make sure that anyone exiting the premises would be scrutinized. To this, they only made excuses that the cars exiting the premises came from the other side of the lot and that there was no chance they could have stolen from me.
- After talking to a representative of MC Home Depot, we proceeded to the nearest precinct to file a police report.
Let me repeat the fact that I was parked no more than 20 meters away from the guard. And my window was equipped with tempered glass. It would need repeated bangings to break the window in. Either the guard was very oblivious that he wasn’t able to hear or see anything, or he was in on the whole operation.
More than the robbery itself, the incompetence of the security guards is what’s bothering us. Rather than make an attempt to help us, their primary concern was to make excuses. I can’t count the times when I heard the guard say “My instructions were to see to the outgoing vehicles.” It seems to him that the concept of securing the premises of the scene of the crime was just beyond his area of jurisdiction. We kept telling him that he should have inspected the trunks of the outgoing vehicles and all we got as a response was his blank expression.
We’re now in talks with the MC Home Depot management to see if something can be done about the lax security in the premises.
Here’s a list what I lost:
- My HP Pavillion Laptop
- My Canon Powershot G10
- My Nikon D40 DSLR
- My Metrobank Checkbook
- My Sun Broadband Wireless modem
Pics (click to enlarge):
