MTCC asked to order the release of village councilman detained over unreturned vehicle

Cebu City Councilor-elect Joey Daluz III today filed before the Municipal Trial Court in Cities a petition seeking for the immediate release of Labangon Barangay Councilman Rudy Tabasa who has been held since Friday night at the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) headquarters in Camp Sotero Cabahug on Gorordo Avenue over an unreturned city-owned vehicle.

Daluz told Cebu Daily News that Tabasa was being detained by the CCPO because of alleged violation of Article 221 of the Revised Penal Code or failure to deliver a public property.

The detention was highly questionable, said Daluz, saying the CCPO police blotter stated that Tabasa was nabbed during a “citizen’s arrest.”

According to Daluz there was clearly no citizen arrest because two personnel from the city’s General Services Office (GSO) went to Tabasa’s house in Barangay Labangon past 8 p.m. on Friday in the company of four policemen from CPPO’s Station 10.

They were there to question him about the city-owned Toyota Hilux that he failed to return to the city government despite the recall memorandum issued by Acting Mayor Margarita “Margot” Osmeña but he was instead brought and held at the CCPO headquarters.

Tabasa is a political ally of suspended Mayor Michael Rama, along with Daluz.

“Concerted mani. Dili mani ingon nga kalit kalit lang nga nay crimen nahitabo pero nagdala man sila (GSO) police daan. So we will look into that,” said Daluz. (This is concerted. You cannot say that it was unplanned and that they just chanced upon a crime in progress since there the GSO personnel even brought policemen with them.)

Tabasa was among the 47 barangay captains and other village officials in the city who were earlier named in separate complaints lodged by Osmeña before the CCPO and the Office of the Ombudsman in the Visayas for their refusal to return the vehicles issued to them by the city government under the Rama administration.