THE town mayor of Clarin, Misamis Occidental spent Thursday night, Oct. 24, 2019 in the detention cell of the Abellana police station in Cebu City.
Less than 24 hours prior, he was trying to relax with the aid of a masseuse in his airconditioned hotel room.
It was not a happy ending for Mayor David Navarro, who police later found to be on the March 2019 narco list of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Navarro was in Cebu City to attend a workshop on comprehensive development plans of the Clarin Municipal Government held in a hotel near Fuente Osmeña in Cebu City.
The hotel has a massage and spa parlor on the third floor.
The mayor with three bodyguards visited it Wednesday night, Oct. 23. Navarro asked for a masseuse, a female masahista.
There was none available because all the masseuses were booked for the night.
What happened
Based on the account of a masseur of the same massage and spa parlor, Navarro got angry when told of the unavailability of a masseuse.
Navarro, who was drunk, got verbally abusive to the spa manager.
One masseur, John Dueñas, said he did not like the mayor’s action and told Navarro to lay off and calm down.
Dueñas then went towards the masseurs’ quarters but Navarro and his companions followed him.
The mayor pulled Dueñas and punched him in the stomach. After that, Navarro locked his arms behind his back. Someone intervened and the mayor let go of Dueñas. The massage and spa parlor’s CCTV camera recorded all this.
To appease the mayor, the spa manager promised to send a masseuse to his hotel room.
The masseuse went up to Navarro’s hotel room but came running back soon after.
She told the spa manager that the mayor had another idea of a massage. He asked her to masturbate him.
Dueñas and the masseuse reported what happened to the nearest police station.
No arrest, arrest
Abellana police station chief P/Maj. Eduard Sanchez said his men went to the hotel to arrest the mayor but Dueñas and company requested that they settle the matter in the morning.
In the morning, the Abellana police waited for Navarro but he did not show up, Sanchez said.
Sanchez got orders from Brig. Gen. Valeriano de Leon, Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 chief, to find and arrest Navarro.
His men returned to the hotel. Navarro had checked out.
Exit points were monitored.
Thursday afternoon, Navarro was seen at the boarding area of the Mactan airport.
Police arrested him and took him to the Abellana police station.
Navarro was booked for slight physical injury.
‘No mauling’
Facing reporters in handcuffs, Navarro said he did not maul Dueñas as what was being reported.
The Clarin mayor said the spa people shamed him and he felt challenged.
“Ila kong gibastos, nahagit ko. Ako siyang nabaklid, mao to. Kung gisukmag, gikulata, kita man mo sa itsura (ni Dueñas), wala ra man maunsa,” Navarro said.
(They shamed me. I felt challenged. I locked Dueñas’s arms behind his back. Had I mauled him, he wouldn’t be looking that way. He looks untouched.) Navarro is detained at the Abellana police station, far from having the happy ending he had in mind Wednesday night.
Navarro is a close friend of the former mayor of Ozamis City, Nova Parojinog, who is said to be the lover of the incarcerated drug lord Herbert Colangco.
According to Superbalita Cebu sources privy to the drug matrix, Navarro is the conduit of drugs supplied by Parojinog. (MPS FROM AYB, GPL with RBR)