MANILA, Philippines?As an ordinary citizen intrigued by certain questions raised by the current robbery case in Greenbelt 5 in Makati, I have certain relevant questions that I feel deserve an answer. Among these are the following:

When the robbers in fake uniforms as members of the Makati police arrived in the mall, they were using an ordinary privately-owned unlicensed vehicle and not one officially marked Makati Police Station.

Security agents are especially careful in checking the contents of ladies? handbags but they readily allowed the entry of the robbers in unauthorized private motor vehicles.

When the robbers explained that they had come carrying long firearms because of a reported bomb scare, did the security guards feel the robbers intended to shoot the suspected bombs?

The least the security agents could have done was report to their superiors and the nearby police station that the robbers had arrived in suspicious circumstances that deserved closer investigation.

Having heard the commotion in the Rolex store, which was on the first floor of the mall within hearing distance of the two security guards assigned to check arrivals, one of them should at least have informed their superiors of the extraordinary disturbance.

As the robbers were leaving with their loot, none of the security guards took any action to prevent them from escaping. It took two policemen in civilian clothes, on duty as security agents of another city, to exchange shots with the robbers, killing one of them on the spot.

Was not resisting criminals the job of the armed security guards that they did not perform at the risk of their own safety? Their inaction enabled the ?Rolex gang? to escape with the exception of the one who was shot down.

Subsequent reports laid the blame on a notorious gang for previous robberies allegedly committed by it, but no effort was apparently taken to arrest its members for interrogation by the police.

The supposed justification seems to be Rule 113 (b) of the Rules of Court providing that the suspect can be arrested without warrant even by an ordinary citizen ?when an offense has in fact just been committed and he has personal knowledge of facts indicating that the person to be arrested has committed it.?

In Umil v. Ramos, the Supreme Court justified the arrest of the petitioner without warrant on Dec. 28, 1988, for the offense committed on Dec. 14 of the same year. I dissented on the ground that the offense had not just been committed 14 days ago. The delay was not covered by the word ?just,? which meant immediately thereafter. The dissent was simply ignored by the Court which held that the case came under the above-stated rule.

At any rate, the rule cannot be invoked to justify the non-arrest of the Flores gang members which can be justified on the ground that it is done immediately after the robbery was committed. At this time, the objects of the robbery may have already been disposed of by the robbers.

The point is that the security guards failed to question the robbers when they arrived in the mall, or they could easily have communicated their suspicions to the Makati police. They also had enough time to warn the mall shoppers to stay away from the floor of the Rolex store. The photographs clearly show how many of them grouped on the same floor to witness the developments.

One thing is clear and this is that the robbers behaved clumsily, if not arrogantly, resulting in the death of one of them. The security guards, for their part were in fact inefficient and lacked guts. The parties directly involved should have acted with the caution and the courage their duties required which could perhaps also preserved the life of the hoodlum whose testimony would have been useful in convicting him and his fellow robbers.