Former Talisay city mayor, now councilor, Socrates Fernandez is facing suspension again.
This time, Fernandez is being penalized for simple misconduct when he intervened in the police seizure of the vehicle used by his adopted son Joavan in 2011.
In a ruling released yesterday, the Office of the Ombudsman in the Visayas meted Fernandez a three-month suspension without pay.
The Ombudsman also recommended the filing of criminal charges against Fernandez for obstruction of justic in connection with a gun-toting incident that involved his son.
Fernandez was charged after he retrieved a lady’s handbag from Joavan’s Isuzu Bighorn, which was impounded by the police after Joavan’s arrest on
June 4, 2010.
Sought for comment by reporters, Fernandez said he will contest the ruling of the Ombudsman.
He stood by his decision to take the bag from inside Joavan’s vehicle.
“Your own car is an extension of your home. The owner can get inside his house anytime. And since that was my vehicle, I also could get inside,” Fernandez said.
The anti-graft office upheld the testimony of policemen.
“The assertion of the respondent (Fernandez) that the police officers did nothing to inform him about the status of his motor vehicle or that they did nothing to prevent him from approaching the same cannot elicit belief,” said investigator Maria Corazon Vergara-Naraja.
She said the former mayor’s action violated the law.
SPO1 Elmo Rosales said Joavan’s SUV Isuzu Bighorn was placed under police custody after Joavan’s arrest.
Rosales said police decided to sequester the vehicle while they were still securing a search warrant from the court for possible recovery of the firearm used by Joavan in a previous gun-toting incident.
He said mayor Fernandez suddenly arrived, opened the front passenger door of the vehicle, and retrieved a lady’s shoulder bag.
A policeman asked Fernandez to turn over the bag since it may contain evidence for the investigation but Fernandez refused.
In his counter-affidavit, Fernandez said a certain Katherine Jame Mahinay went to his office at Talisay City Hall, seeking help to recover her bag that she had left inside the SUV.
Fernandez said no one stopped him from getting the bag in the car even though he saw three policemen in the area.
In February this year, Fernandez was also suspended by the Ombudsman for three months after he was found administratively liable for allowing a City Hall employee who did not possess a driver’s license to drive his Toyota Revo service car without a trip ticket in 2010.
The city government-owned SUV was stopped by police in barangay Pardo, Cebu City on Sept. 13, 2010 after police were alerted that the vehicle was used by Joavan who had earlier clashed with a foreigner in a mall in Cebu City.
Joavan is currently detained at the Cebu provincial jail for a case of possession of explosives, a non-bailable offense.