Saturday, October 11, 2008 Joavan ‘positive of drugs, has no license for guns’
THE firearms and explosives section of the police has confirmed that Talisay City Mayor Socrates Fernandez’s son Joavan does not own a licensed firearm and is not legally allowed to keep ammunition.
National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 Supervising Agent Renan Oliva said the confirmation came by way of a certificate signed by Chief Insp. Jacinto Cezar, head of the Firearms Explosives Security Agencies and Guards Supervisory Section (Fesagss) 7.
“This is what we need to support the complaint of illegal possession,” Oliva, a lawyer, said in an interview yesterday. The unlawful possession of a gun or ammunition is prohibited under Republic Act (RA) 8294.
“We can file the complaint on Monday, as soon as we get approval from the regional director,” he said.
Pieces of ammunition for firearms chambered in .45 cal. and 9mm, together with magazines for a pistol and a submachine gun, were taken from Joavan when NBI 7 agents arrested him at a massage parlor late Monday night.
He is facing charges for serious illegal detention filed by cousins and vulcanizing shop workers Osbert and Winston Abellana. Their aunt, Merceditha, filed a case against Joavan for robbery.
Meanwhile, vulcanizing shop manager Merceditha Abellana and her nephew Winston will have their time in court to explain their signed affidavits of desistance clearing Joavan of any criminal liability, Talisay City Prosecutor Marshall Rubia said yesterday.
“They will be given a chance to explain the circumstances that led them into signing their affidavits,” Rubia said.
This, he added, if the defense will present the affidavits of desistance of Merceditha, 46, and Winston, 18, in court.
Rubia said the prosecutor’s office no longer has jurisdiction over the serious illegal detention and robbery charges against Joavan, as these have already been elevated to court.
Merceditha, a widow, earlier accused Joavan of taking away a 21-inch Sanyo television and a DVD player from her vulcanizing shop in Tabunok last August.
Recently, however, she retracted and blamed instead Osbert, Winston’s cousin, as the one who took the items and voluntarily handed these to Joavan.
She said the appliances would serve as guarantees until she could finally pay the missing spare tire of Mayor Fernandez.
For his part, Winston cleared Joavan as the one who forcibly took him from the vulcanizing shop to Sitio Lower Mansueto, Bulacao where he and Osbert were reportedly badly beaten up.
He said that he voluntarily went with Joavan, who rescued him from an angry mob who mistook him for a thief.
Rubia said that he clearly explained both to Merceditha and Winston about the consequences of retracting their earlier statements when he received their desistance papers.
“But it was their decision to sign, as Merceditha said that she only wanted to stay out of trouble,” he added.
But aside from the illegal detention complaint, Joavan may be facing charges for illegal possession of ammunition and drug paraphernalia.
The recovery of the ammunition was made in a search, which NBI 7’s Oliva said, was “incidental to the arrest” and was authorized by a warrant issued by Regional Trial Court Judge Manuel Patalinghug.
Apart from the ammunition, NBI 7 agents recovered tin foils and a tooter-– pieced-together set of glass cylinders used in the intake of shabu. It has a chamber where the crystallized methamphetamine hydrochloride is placed and heated, a separate chamber to capture the vapor, and a tube from which to inhale it.
The possession of a tooter is prohibited under Sec. 12 of RA 9165, which includes “equipment, instrument, apparatus and other paraphernalia for dangerous drugs.”
The provision sets the penalty of imprisonment of up to four years and a fine of up to P50,000 to any person caught in possession of “any equipment, instrument, apparatus and other paraphernalia fit or intended for smoking, consuming, administering, injecting, ingesting, or introducing any dangerous drug into the body.”
NBI 7 Special Investigator Greg Tomagan, in an earlier interview, said the agency is poised to file an anti-drug charge and an illegal possession complaint but they are still waiting for the results of a confirmatory test conducted on Joavan on the night of his arrest.
Joavan’s urine tested positive for drugs, an official at the NBI forensic laboratory has confirmed. But this could also be taken to mean that he took medication hours before his arrest.
The confirmatory test will determine what particular substance was in his urine at the time of his arrest and whether or not the substance is classified as a prohibited or a regulated drug. (KNR/GC)
