WHY IS JOAVAN FREE?

Gullas: Mayor’s son needs help; Reyes: Will people still believe in you?

Still missing 11 days after he was seen shooting a car shop watchman, Joavan Fernandez is becoming an election issue in Talisay City.

Rep. Eduardo Gullas, who is running for city mayor, admitted that the repeated shenanigans of the adopted son of Talisay Mayor Socrates Fernandez, his close ally, was affecting the Alayon party and his own candidacy, and was aware the issue was being used by opponents to picture them as weak.

But Gullas said he didn’t want to “attack a man while he’s down” and that it’s up to the police to arrest Joavan.

“Kana siya angay gyud nang agakon ug dili tamakan ug samot,” Gullas said of the mayor’s adopted son. (Joavan is someone you should pick up and help, not step on some more.)

His challenger for the mayorship, Johnny B. delos Reyes of the Liberal Party, said the missing suspect, still being tracked down by the Talisay police , was “just around” in Talisay.

Delos Reyes, in the 888 News Forum yesterday, said a Talisay resident who came to his home in barangay Bulacao seeking assistance, recounted that he allegedly saw Joavan “quarreling with his wife” at home, and brandishing a gun.

Delos Reyes said this was a recent account, after the April 12 shooting in the DanRyan auto repair shop by the SRP road in barangay Isidro where 36-year-old Eduardo Largo was shot twice in the arms, but he gave no other details of the second-hand account.

The mayor’s son lives in barangay Bulacao near his parent’s house.

Over the years it’s become a pattern for Mayor Fernandez, a soft-spoken, Catholic lay leader, to come to the defense of his only child, posting his bail and tenderly ministering to his needs each time Joavan gets arrested or brought to a rehabilitation center or the jail.

“Nobody is above the law,” said delos Reyes.

“If you can’t discipline a member of your own family, you won’t have credibility in disciplining the rest of the people as an official,” said the candidate.

In the forum, delos Reyes said that if he gets elected, he would show that he would not give favored treatment to anyone who breaks the law.

He said he had a beloved nephew who once got into trouble with drugs but delos Reyes said didn’t intervene when the young man got arrested.

Joavan’s brushes with the law have been in the limelight since 2006, a string of complaints from varied victims – store clerks, gas station attendants, vulcanizing shop workers, motorists – who say he throws his weight around in Talisay, intimidating people by brandishing a gun, reckless driving or threats when he doesn’t get his way.

He’s been arrested before on charges of shabu possession and frustrated murder. None of the charges would stick with a conviction.

OLD ISSUE

Yesterday, Congressman Gullas, in a press conference at his office in the University of the Visayas, said the issue about Joavan was an old one now being used by political opponents.

Gullas said the Alayon party would just ignore it and let it die down except when Joavan gets into another controversy.

“Several years ago I talked to Mayor Fernandez and advised him to submit his son for drug rehabilitation for his transformation,” said Gullas.

“Let the police do their job.”

In the April 12 shooting, a frustrated murder charge was filed against Joavan by the police.

Senior Supt. Patrocinio Comendador Jr., provincial police chief, gave Talisay police two weeks to find the suspect who remains at large.

Joavan, in a phone interview immediately after the shooting, said he could not have been responsible for the violence which took place about 12:30 a.m. because he was in the Queensland Talisay motel at the time.

Joavan then accused his father’s political boss, Gullas, of staging the incident to instigate a false charge against Mayor Fernandez.

In a strange political twist, Joavan said the incident was just a ploy to discredit his father and boost the chances of Gullas’ grandson Eduardo “Digul” Gullas III to be elected no. 1 councilor in his reelection bid.

Mayor Fernandez, who backtracked on an earlier promise to the Talisay police chief to turn over his son for investigation, said he would do so only when the court issues a warrant of arrest.

MARKET CONTROVERSY

Another major Talisay city election issue is the groundswell of resentment of vendors, market goers and drivers over the closure of the old Tabunok market two years ago and the transfer to a new market place farther away in Lagtang.

Last Sunday, Congressman Gullas, who sponsored the new Lagtang market, had the old parking lot for Talisay tricycle drivers reopened.

Gullas said he would meet today with vendors for a “consultation” on whether they wanted to return to the old market or stay in Lagtang, where there’s more space and fresh air.

Gullas said he wanted to “listen” to the people and was not acting just because of the coming election.

“I am not complacent about the election. I still go house to house to campaign.”

In the 888 News Forum, his rival de los Reyes said the timing of the change was clearly done to win votes.

“Why open the market only now? It happened like a lightning bolt.”

The businessman-inventor said Gullas was shaken up by the long-simmering market controversy.

De lose Reyes, when asked why he was going up against a veteran like Gullas, a three-term former Cebu governor and the first mayor of Talisay City, the candidate said he was a small player in the election,

“Kinsa man ko? Piso lang ko kontra sa buaya,” he said.

(Who am I? I’m just a small chick going up against a crocodile.”)

But Talisay residents, he said, are clamoring for change./With reports of Gabriel Bonjoc, Tweeny Malinao