Sunday, September 07, 2008 'Guardian angel' saved Joavan from attack: pa
JOAVAN Fernandez survived what could have been a fatal attack because God was with him, his religious father Talisay City Mayor Socrates Fernandez said.
“Gi-anghelan si Joavan. Bahala na ingnon ninyo ang akong anak ngil-ad, pero nakita ko ang Diyos nagauban kaniya (His guardian angel saved him. I don’t care if you think that my son is a bad person but I can see that the Lord is with him),” Fernandez said in his nightly program at dyRF, a Catholic-run radio station, last Thursday.
Fernandez gained popularity for being a Catholic faith defender.
Had his son not dodged the attack and run for safety, he would have been hacked to death, he said.
The 26-year-old Joavan survived the assault in Barangay Tanke, suffering only a minor “point mark” wound in the left side of his body.
Fernandez said the attack, reportedly carried out by neighborhood toughie Randy Bazar, was not scripted.
Reports said Bazar, who remains at large, merely used a dull bolo, raising speculations that it was scripted to gain public sympathy for Joavan.
Paregla
Fernandez also took exception to reports that Joavan had bullied the neighborhood that prompted the paregla (unprovoked attack).
“It is not true Joavan was attacked because he was causing trouble,” he said.
In the same radio program, the mayor aired the testimonies of Nenita Amagos, a fruit vendor, and Maria Julia Macaraya, a loyal follower, to prove that his son was not a trouble-maker.
Amagos said Joavan was merely standing near her stall when Bazar suddenly appeared and hacked him with a bolo. The incident happened around 6:45 p.m. last Tuesday.
For her part, Macaraya, known in the neighborhood as Daga, vouched for Amagos, saying Joavan merely dropped by to have dinner.
Fernandez said his son usually drops by at Macaraya’s house to eat seafood whenever he visits Magay, a densely populated coastal area.
When a group of reporters went to Magay last Thursday, Macaraya loudly taunted the media for “inventing” stories against Joavan, whom she described as a good person.
Drug related
However, police received a report that the hacking happened because Joavan wanted to get illegal drugs from Bazar for free. Bazar reportedly got fed up with Joavan’s abusive behavior then.
A man, in his 30s told the media they also had had enough with Joavan and warned to get back at him should he continue to bully the Magay neighborhood.
But Fernandez, in the same radio show, said his son was not as bad as other people perceive him to be.
“Di ingon ana kangil-ad ug kasalbahis ang akong anak,” he said
Reason
He said Joavan was only dragged into the issue about the mauling of two vulcanizing shop workers last month. Joavan was dragged into the controversy for a “compelling reason.”
Fernandez cited the missing spare tire of his vehicle that turned out to have been sold allegedly by shop workers Winston, 18, and Osbert, 21, both surnamed Abellana.
The two failed to pay for the tire, so Joavan grabbed and brought them outside his house in Lower Mansueto, Barangay Bulacao.
Fernandez believed that his son’s life was in peril following the hacking incident that he requested for a quick 24-hour, three-shift police escort for Joavan. (GC)
