Saturday, October 11, 2008 Patrols set in 2 frats’ ‘clash sites’
ACTING Lapu-Lapu City Police Director Mariano Natuel said he won’t bother meeting chapter leaders of rival Tau Gamma Phi and Alpha Kappa Rho (Akrho) fraternities for a peace accord saying this was proven ineffective because leaders of both groups cannot control their members.
Natuel said enforcing the old curfew ordinance can also be effective in preventing conflict between the two groups from worsening because RA 9344 or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act prohibits detention of minors in conflict with the law.
He said police patrol in areas where members of either group regularly converge is the most logical approach to stop frat-related violence.
Two Akrho members were among five people injured in a shooting incident Wednesday evening on Maximo Patalinjug Ave. in Barangay Basak. The shooters were reportedly members of Tau Gamma.
One of the wounded Akrho members is 17-year-old Clark Lequin. He is still confined at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) in Cebu City for a gunshot wound below his right armpit.
“The curfew ordinance is a hassle to parents because after minors are lectured by the social welfare officer, they are allowed to leave. It’s just a cycle,” Natuel said.
The Lapu-Lapu City Council is now reviewing an amendatory curfew ordinance jointly authored by minority Councilor Efren Herrera and SK Federation Chairman Reymar Dico that prohibits minors from coming out of their homes from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m.
Vice Mayor Mario Amores said the proposal strengthens the curfew ordinance by ordering minors caught violating it to be placed under the custody of the social welfare office.
“We have a halfway house built in Barangay Poblacion. Our intention is to keep minor offenders there until they are reformed,” he said.
Hours after Wednes-day’s shooting, police caught one of the gunman whom they identified as Norman Espina, 23, in his house in Barangay Gun-ob.
Others wounded in the shooting were Neil Esto-mago, 20, an Akrho member; Jobert Espinosa, 19, Jovanni Desierto, 16, and Mervin Maranga, 35, all non-frat members.
They were about 50 meters from the Basak barangay hall on the tricycle Maranga was driving when two men standing beside a parked motorcycle fired at them.
Natuel said he has ordered his men to intensify the surveillance on both fraternities and identify their usual meeting places. (AIV)
