Cases of breaking and entering are not rare in the Philippines. This recent incident in Santa Cruz, Laguna, for example, was a run-of-the-mill heist, except the thief took with him one unexpected souvenir.
Yesterday, a cafe owner identified by ABS-CBN News as Cayton Cayton filed a robbery case against 24-year-old Donald Mapa Oca after the latter broke in the restaurant and stole several items.
The burglary was caught on CCTV and happened on Aug. 21 at around 9pm, right after the cafe closed for the day. Oca entered by breaking the cafe’s window.
In the footage, Oca can be seen entering the cashier’s area and going through containers on the counter using a phone he found in the cafe.
He can also be seen taking down a 40-inch flat screen TV that was mounted on one of the establishment’s walls and pocketing PHP2,000 (US$37.35) of cash he found after scouring the kitchen.
All these are things that would catch the eye of any thief but Oca was not satisfied.
While most criminals are normally in a rush to get away from the crime scene, this one still took the time to open the cafe’s industrial refrigerator to steal — wait for it — beer.
One for the road?
According to the ABS-CBN News report, Oca was inside the cafe for more than two hours.
Cayton arrived at his cafe the next morning only to find that his belongings have been stolen, moving him to post screenshots of CCTV footage on social media.
Santa Cruz police caught Oca four days after the incident in a neighboring barangay (village). He was charged with trespassing and illegal possession of a deadly weapon as he was found with a knife.
According to police, many have filed complaints against Oca for similar incidents.
While behind bars, Oca admitted what he did and said that he already earned from the items he stole.
No word on whether he sold the beer too or kept it to himself as a nightcap.
