Wednesday, October 08, 2008 Joavan locked up By Karlon N. Rama & Garry A. Cabotaje Sun.Star Staff Reporters
TALISAY City Mayor Socrates Fernandez’s son Joavan was detained at the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) overnight and then presented to Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 22 Judge Manuel Patalinghug yesterday morning.
He was then turned over to the Talisay City Rehabilitation and Detention Center, where he will await trial on the serious illegal detention case against him and five others. Pre-trial is on the 23rd.
He will be held without bail, unless the court gets convinced to rule otherwise after a bail motion and a hearing.
“Two of the complainants have already backed out but the two others still remain,” said Mayor Fernandez in Cebuano when asked if the arrest came as a surprise.
The mayor went to the NBI office about an hour past midnight Monday to check on Joavan. He said he heard about the arrest from a Talisay City police official who phoned him while he was already in bed.
The mayor is currently the subject of an Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas fact-finding for allegedly giving money and offering jobs to the complainants if they withdraw their charges against Joavan.
Sources said he asked one NBI operative to keep Joavan inside the office of one of the agents instead of at the detention center, but did not insist when told that this went against policy.
Supervising Agent Renan Oliva, Special Investigators Arnel Pura and Greg Tomagan and Agent Greg Algoso picked Joavan up while he was having a backrub at a Thai massage parlor in Tabunok, Talisay City.
The young man did not resist arrest. He was quiet all the way and was compliant when photographed and fingerprinted as part of his booking.
Agents found two magazines, one for a pistol and the other for a submachine gun, along with some .45 cal. and 9mm cartridges, in the Pajero he rode in going to the massage parlor, raising initial fears that he was armed.
But no gun was found.
Instead, said Oliva, they found what is commonly known as a tooter, a lighter and crumpled pieces of small aluminum sheets in Joavan’s jeans.
“We will separately file the appropriate charges against him under regular preliminary investigation. Anyhow, there is no rush because he is already under detention,” Tomagan said.
Among those who heaved a sigh of relief after Joavan’s arrest were Vice Mayor Lani Abarquez and Oscar Abellana, the father of one of two men who were allegedly mauled by Joavan.
“I thank God and the NBI for Joavan’s arrest,” said Abellana.
Abellana’s son Osbert, 21, and cousin Winston, 18, were allegedly beaten by Joavan and five others over the spare tire missing from the vehicle of Talisay City Mayor Socrates Fernandez in Sitio Lower Mansueto, Bulacao last Aug. 11.
Lone man
Osbert is the lone complainant remaining against Joavan after Winston and his aunt Mercedita, owner of the vulcanizing shop where the mayor’s car was brought, issued affidavits of desistance.
The elder Abellana earns a living by dispatching taxi units in Barangay Tabunok. He now believes that his younger brother, Rolando, and Mayor Fernandez are working out a deal for them to withdraw the criminal case.
He told reporters that he saw Rolando board Fernandez’s service vehicle, a white Toyota Revo, when it passed beneath the Tabunok flyover yesterday morning.
Abellana hopes that both Mercedita and Winston will be criminally charged for retracting their statements identifying Joavan as the one responsible for the mauling and taking away a TV set and a DVD player.
“It’s good for him (Joavan). I think many are happy and feel safe now with his arrest,” said Vice Mayor Abarquez in a separate interview.
Abarquez, an opposition candidate in the May 2007 polls, called on the mayor to apologize to the Talisaynons for “his sins of omission.”
Rehab
She also supported the idea of Rep. Eduardo Gullas (Cebu Province, 1st district) that Joavan be sent to a rehabilitation facility.
“But he’s in denial that his (Mayor Fernandez’s) son needs professional help.
He should acknowledge the problem that there’s something wrong with his son,” she said.
The City Council, dominated by political allies of Fernandez, refused yesterday to take a collective stand on Joavan’s arrest.
Abarquez sits as the council’s presiding officer.
Radio station dyRF, where Fernandez hosts a nightly Bible-preaching program, got swarmed with calls, with some callers saying they want Joavan to rot in jail.
They expressed dismay over Fernandez’s over-protectiveness, to the extent of shielding the reported misdemeanors of his son.
Meanwhile, Senior Insp. Jovito Canlapan assured that the police force will not downgrade security measures for the annual fiesta this month, despite Joavan’s arrest.
He downplayed perceptions that the Talisay City Police Station has not been diligently working on the capture of Joavan.
Already down
Had they secured a copy of the arrest warrant, Canlapan said, the local police force would have arrested the mayor’s adopted son.
A lean team of NBI agents did, in a few minutes late Monday night, what the entire Talisay City PNP Station could not do in the past: arrest Joavan.
The NBI got a copy of Joavan’s warrant of arrest late Monday afternoon and immediately called informants in the Talisay and Minglanilla area to help locate the mayor’s son.
An informant called back with information that Joavan’s Pajero, easy to spot because it did not have a plate number, had been seen in Tabunok late in the evening.
The agents went to the area but couldn’t find it.
They were ready to give up when they passed by the vehicle parked outside the massage parlor.
“We didn’t even have to ask him to get down, because he was already lying down,” agent Oliva recalled.
