FORMER Pinamungajan mayor Geraldine Yapha, who is running for the Third District’s congressional seat, has sought the intervention of local police after she received a death threat on Wednesday, Feb. 20.
Yapha told police her driver found a crumpled note containing two bullets at the back of her pick-up truck.
Written in the note was a warning that she and her driver could die if she doesn’t back out of the congressional race.
After Yapha reported the threat, officials of the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) said they will conduct an assessment to determine if the threats against her are authentic.
But for one of Yapha’s opponents, Toledo City Mayor John Henry “Sonny” Osmeña, the former Pinamungajan mayor and doctor is just making up the threats out of desperation.
Yapha told reporters on Wednesday that her driver, Rex Zamora, found the crumpled note at around 7:30 a.m. while he was cleaning her car at her house in Barangay Labangon, Cebu City.
Upon inspecting the note, Zamora found two bullets of a .9mm pistol.
On the note were the words “W-draw or die, two bullets, one for you, one for driver.”
After receiving the note from Zamora, Yapha immediately went to the CPPO headquarters in Barangay Lahug to report the threat.
Though CPPO accommodated Yapha, local police advised her to also make a report to the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) as her house is situated within its jurisdiction.
In an interview, Yapha said it was the first time she received a death threat since she entered politics 20 years ago.
She admitted she is worried for her security especially with the political situation in the Third District becoming intense as the elections draw near.
Yapha believed politics may have been behind the death threat against her.
But she refused to state if the threats may have been from the camp of her rivals, Osmeña and former Third District representative Pablo John Garcia, citing lack of evidence.
“Well if you say suspicion, it’s all speculations because there is really no one we can pinpoint. But if we talk of my political opponents, there are three of us, so i can’t say if one of them is involved because we don’t have the evidence. For me, I was made to believe that it has something (to do) with politics,” Yapha said.
Yapha admitted a certain politician she refused to identify offered P50 million in exchange for her withdrawal.
Yapha said she is ready to divulge the name of the politician before police but she is uncertain if the same person sent the threats.
She said since she started visiting the barangays in the Third District, she has never mentioned her rivals nor criticized them.
Separately, Garcia said Yapha’s threats should not be taken lightly.
“Any threat, whether confirmed or not, should be taken seriously. The police should provide her protection and immediately investigate if the threat is genuine,” said Garcia in a text message to Superbalita Cebu.
But for Osmeña, who is also running for the same position as that of Garcia and Yapha, called the death threat “fake news.”
“Fake News! Ridiculous! She is desperate in getting attention,” Osmeña told SunStar Cebu.
Senior Supt. Manuel Abrugena, CPPO director, told Superbalita Cebu in a text message they will assess the death threat received by Yapha. (From AYB and SCG of SuperBalita Cebu, JKV)