Friday, September 05, 2008 After hacking, Joavan accused of brandishing an Armalite
A JOINT team from the Talisay City Police Station and the Provincial Intelligence Branch will check on reports that Joavan Fernandez brandished a rifle in Barangay Tangke, Talisay City yesterday dawn.
Cebu Provincial Police Office Director Carmelo Valmoria said he did not hear about the latest allegation against the mayor’s son until reporters asked him yesterday.
A woman interviewed over radio dySS claimed Joavan was there the night before looking for the man who attacked him Monday night with a bolo.
“Right now, it is just speculation. We will have to validate this first,” Valmoria told reporters.
After the reported hacking, however, Mayor Socrates Fernandez wants the police to protect Joavan around the clock, because he believes his son’s life is in peril.
Valmoria is still waiting for the letter from Mayor Fernandez, who said that his son received at least three death threats on his cellular phone since the hacking incident in Tangke.
Senior Insp. Jovito Canlapan told Mayor Fernandez that he (Canlapan) could not provide immediate security escorts for the mayor’s son. Instead, the request for security detail should be addressed to a higher police office, for assessment.
Canlapan serves as officer-in-charge of Tali-say City’s police station.
“There is a process that we must follow. Not anybody can just request for a security escort. There are criteria that have to be complied with,” Valmoria explained.
He said a threat assessment has to be made first, especially since the lack of personnel challenges the PNP nationwide. In Talisay City alone, they lack 74 officers.
“Is there an imminent threat or is it an imagined threat? An assessment is needed because anybody can just request for security,” Valmoria said.
The team will also try to establish if it was true Joavan was in the area looking for drugs. Tangke is one of the Province’s “problematic areas” when it comes to illegal
drugs.
Police are also looking for witnesses who can shed light on the alleged attack on Joavan.
However, they received word that Joavan’s lawyer would be the one to prepare the complaint against his attacker in Barangay Tangke.
A group of reporters from Sun.Star, ABS-CBN Cebu and dyRF Radyo Fuerza went to Sitio Magay past 12 noon to confirm the report.
While most of the residents shied away from talking to the press, a man voluntarily confirmed that Joavan returned to Magay around 4 a.m. yesterday.
The man, in his early 30s, granted the interview but partly covered his face with cloth.
At 4 a.m. yesterday, the man said, Joavan got off from his vehicle and carried with him a long firearm that looked like an M16 Armalite rifle.
“Ang tawo nanagan kay nikuhag armas si Joavan, sige siyag tan-aw namo diri (The people ran away when Joavan got his gun, all the while looking at us),” he said.
The man also clarified that the attack on Joavan last Tuesday was real, contrary to some people’s suspicion that it was scripted.
A fish vendor also confirmed that she saw Joavan that same hour but did not notice him carry a firearm. She said she was on her way to Magay’s shoreline to buy fish
when she walked past Joavan’s parked service vehicle.
Chief tanod Luciano Benitez, however, said they have not received a report that Joavan had returned to Magay with a long firearm. (MEA/GC)
