Si Joavan Fernandez ni sugmat nasad ang kabuang...mao unta ni gihipos ni Dumpit...dili kanang mga way ikasukol.
Joavan waves gun at couple
By Garry A. Cabotaje
JOAVAN Fernandez allegedly brandished a handgun and pointed it at civilians yesterday dawn, in violation of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) gun ban.
Police filed complaints against him for attempted homicide and reckless imprudence resulting in damage to property and physical injuries.
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Traffic policemen failed to search Fernandez’s car for the gun.
The incident allegedly took place after the son of reelectionist Talisay City Mayor Socrates Fernandez figured in a vehicular accident that nearly pinned to death a couple on a motorcycle at the Lawaan 3-Pooc junction around 3:45 a.m.
Instead of lending a hand to the injured Ignacio couple—Jonathan, 24, and Irene, 26—Joavan got out of his red Isuzu Bighorn and yelled at them.
“Wa mo kaila nako? Anak ko sa Mayor, ako ning Talisay (Don’t you know who I am? I’m the mayor’s son. Talisay is my turf),” he allegedly said.
“Had Joavan squeezed the trigger, we would be dead by now. We were just four meters away from him,” a trembling Irene told reporters at the police station.
At City Hall, reporters tried to get the side of Fernandez, but he declined, saying he had yet to talk to his son.
Reporters bumped into the mayor, a Catholic faith defender, while he was on his way to attend a first Friday mass at the People’s Hall.
The Ignacio couple was on their way to Lapu-Lapu City from their house in Barangay Inayagan, Naga.
They had to wake up early to avoid traffic and reach their workplace on time. Jonathan, the driver, works as a food attendant at the Mactan Air Base, while Irene is employed at a firm in the Mactan Economic Zone II.
No test
Prior to the incident, Ignacio said he noticed a sports utility vehicle dropping off a woman at a roadside bar across the gas station along the Lawaan highway.
Upon reaching the Pooc junction, the Isuzu Bighorn overtook them and, without flashing its turn signal, suddenly made a right turn, forcing the couple’s motorcycle to slam into the vehicle’s right side.
Ignacio said his wife was thrown at impact, while he and his motorcycle were nearly pinned under the SUV.
Although he missed the vehicle’s huge tires, Ignacio complained of pain in his back, arms and feet. He still carried with him his broken helmet and blood-stained jacket at
the police station.
Much to the couple’s surprise, the driver, who turned out to be Joavan, yelled at them and threatened them. He then allegedly pulled out a firearm and pointed it at them. Ignacio believed the gun was a .45 pistol.
Sensing danger, Irene said she hugged Ignacio to protect him, while she begged for mercy.
The scene attracted bystanders, she said.
“We thought all along that he would bring us to the nearest hospital but we encountered a near-death experience instead,” Ignacio said.
Help
Help came when two traffic policemen, PO2 Roelito Tano and PO1 Manolito Daal, arrived.
But Ignacio lamented that the policemen did not seize Joavan’s handgun, only his driver’s license, even if he had told them the man was armed.
In an interview over dyRF Radyo Fuerza, Tano explained that he could not just enter the vehicle and search it.
“This was a vehicular accident. We could only effect a search after a lawful arrest. The vehicle was closed and the least that we could do was to apply the plain view doctrine,” he said.
Tano said he could not also say if Joavan was drunk without the latter undergoing a liquor test.
The police did not impound Joavan’s vehicle, saying the confiscation of Joavan’s license was enough to pursue the investigation.
It was the same Isuzu vehicle Joavan drove when he was arrested for alleged possession of an unlicensed firearm and illegal drugs by the Highway Patrol Group (HPG) near the Mactan-Cebu International Airport in Lapu-Lapu City last September.
Out on bail
Inside the vehicle during that previous incident, police found a .38 revolver with two bullets, three plastic packs containing a white crystalline substance believed to be shabu and five other empty packs and sniffing paraphernalia.
Joavan was taken into custody, but he was able to post bail.
The HPG team had chased the Isuzu Bighorn after it used a siren and ran against traffic near the first Mactan-Mandaue Bridge. The vehicle’s license plates were concealed.
When intercepted, Joavan alighted from the vehicle and introduced himself as Fernandez’s son. He and his four other companions did not resist.
That arrest came barely three months after the court allowed Joavan to post bail for two cases of serious illegal detention cases filed by cousins Winston and Oscar Abellana in 2008.
Backed by his friends, Joavan had allegedly taken the Abellanas from their vulcanizing shop in Tabunok and beat them up for losing his father’s spare tire.