CARNAPPING VS. KIDNAPPING

CITIZEN’S ARREST? Labangon Barangay Councilman Rodolfo Tabasa, accompanied by Councilor-elect Joey Daluz, undergoes a medical checkup at the PNP Hospital in Camp Sotero Cabahug at dawn on Saturday after he was “arrested” for allegedly carnapping a city-owned vehicle. (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)

The winds of fortune have changed.

What started as a case of carnapping that led to the arrest of Labangon Barangay Councilman Rodolfo Tabasa has evolved into charges of kidnapping against those responsible for his 19-hour detention.

Cebu City Councilor-elect Jocelyn “Joy” Pesquera yesterday said they would file kidnapping charges against Acting Mayor Margarita “Margot” Osmeña and three officers of City Hall’s General Services Office (GSO) for the “citizen’s arrest” effected on Tabasa Friday night.

Pesquera filed a blotter report for kidnapping against Osmeña, GSO head Ronald Malacora, and GSO employees Kenneth Amor and Rafael Cabunilas before the Punta Princesa Police Station on Friday night.

Pesquera also accused the acting mayor and the three city employees of grave coercion, illegal detention and unlawful arrest.

“I’ll sue her (Margot). Based on the statement of Amor, he was acting on the orders of Malacora and Margot Osmeña,” she said in a text message to Cebu Daily News yesterday.

Osmeña, sought for comment, denied she had a hand in the arrest and detention of Tabasa at the Cebu City Police (CCPO) headquarters in Camp Sotero Cabahug along Gorordo Avenue at about 9 p.m. on Friday.

Tabasa was released past 3 p.m. yesterday, about 19 hours since he was placed under “citizen’s arrest” by GSO personnel over an unreturned city-owned Toyota Hilux.

The 57-year-old councilman exited from the CCPO premises with a beaming face.

“Kinsa man gyu’y dili malipay nga makagawas? Wala gyud ko’y tulog gabii (Who wouldn’t be happy to be released from police custody? I didn’t have sleep last night),” said Tabasa in an interview.

He was accompanied by lawyer Mikel Rama, son of suspended Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama; lawyer Ernesto Rama, a cousin of the suspended mayor; and Councilors-elect Eduardo Rama and Joey Daluz III, among others.

In her release order issued yesterday, Judge Pamela Baring-Uy of Cebu City’s Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTTC) Branch 6 noted that the police failed to file appropriate charges against Tabasa within the reglementary period.

“As of this time, no complaint is filed with the Cebu City Prosecutors’ Office nor an inquest proceeding conducted. No information as well is filed in court anent the alleged violation,” the judge said.

“Under the rules, the arresting officers should deliver the living person of Rodolfo Tabasa to the concerned authorities within the period of 12 hours from arrest for proper disposition,” she added.

At about 9 a.m. yesterday, Daluz, a lawyer, filed a petition for Tabasa’s release before the MTCC at the Qimonda I.T. Center, Cebu City’s temporary courthouse. (The courts are open up to 12 noon on Saturdays.)

Uy, the judge on duty and acting on the request, ordered the CCPO to release Tabasa to Daluz and lawyers Benjamin Bongon, Ernesto Rama, Francisco Amit and Oliver Booc who represented the councilman in the case.

But the story did not end there.

Daluz, in an interview, said they would file countercharges against Amor and Cabunilas for conducting an allegedly illegal “citizen’s arrest.”

A citizen’s arrest is made by an ordinary person without a warrant.

Daluz said there was clearly no citizen’s arrest because the GSO personnel came with four policemen from CPPO’s Station 10 who claimed they were there to take him to the police station for questioning over his failure to return the city-owned Toyota Hilux despite the recall memorandum issued by Osmeña.

“Concerted man ni. Dili mani ingon nga kalit kalit lang nga nay crimen nahitabo pero nagdala man sila pulis daan (This is concerted. You cannot say that suddenly a crime was in progress since the GSO personnel had brought policemen with them),” said Daluz.

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

So far, 32 officials have complied with the order. The rest, including Tabasa, did not heed Osmeña’s memorandum.

But Daluz said there was no evidence for now to prove that Osmeña masterminded Tabasa’s arrest.

“I do not like to surmise but the fact is that it was the employees of GSO who went to the house of Tabasa and that they were instructed by someone. I have my suspicions but we will study the case further and gather more evidence against those who had a hand in his arrest. But of course, it should be done with the cooperation of Tabasa who is the aggrieved party,” Daluz said.

Cebu Daily News called Malacora nine times yesterday but he did not answer. A text message sent to him was also not answered.

NOT ME

Osmeña denied she had Tabasa arrested.

“See, I don’t know. You’re the one telling me now,” she said when interviewed by CDN by phone at 8 a.m. yesterday. “I was not the one [who ordered Tabasa’s arrest]. Maybe, the law caught up with him.”

Last May 25, she filed a blotter report at the office of the Intelligence and Detection Management Branch (IDMB) of the CCPO against the barangay captains and officials, including Tabasa, who refused to return the government-owned vehicles.

Supt. Aileen Recla, the IDMB chief, was relieved from her position last Monday for allegedly failing to go after the barangay captains and officials who didn’t return their city-issued vehicles, sources at the CCPO claimed.

The sources said Recla reportedly did not find any compelling reason to arrest the barangay leaders since there was no warrant issued by the court nor were they caught in the act of carnapping the vehicles.

Tabasa said Amor of GSO and four policemen arrived at his house at Bon-Ami, Barangay Labangon past 8 p.m. on Friday and asked him on the whereabouts of the Toyota Hilux.

He said he told them that they could take the vehicle, which was parked outside his house, but he was instead asked to go with them to the police station.

Tabasa said he got scared when, after arriving at the CCPO, he was told to have a medical checkup—a procedure one must undergo before detention.

Tabasa immediately called Daluz for help.

The councilman said the Toyota Hilux was never used for personal errands and was even used several times by the city’s Department of Social Welfare Services.

Tabasa told CDN he would return the city-owned vehicle within the week, saying he would rather let go of the vehicle than go to prison.

He said he left it to his lawyers to decide what charges to file against those who had him arrested.

NOT THE POLICE

Supt. George Ylanan, CCPO deputy director for operations, also said the police had nothing to do with Tabasa’s arrest.

“Just to set the record straight. He (Tabasa) was not arrested by the police. It was the GSO members who nabbed him through a citizen’s arrest,” he told CDN.

Based on the blotter entry of the incident, the police just assisted the GSO employees who came to the City Intelligence Bureau (CIB), he said.

Suspended Mayor Rama considered Tabasa’s arrest as “abominable, appalling and highly reprehensible.”

“That’s too much. She (Margot) feels like a fly that (has) managed to sit on an elephant. I just feel bad why these things should happen. But we will not take this matter sitting down,” he said in a text message.

Labangon Barangay Captain Victor Buendia, a member of the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan, claimed Tabasa hid the vehicle and refused to return it.

“He actually hid that vehicle. He even rented a parking space for that vehicle. He’s not using it for the barangay,” said Buendia, who ran for city councilor but lost in the May 9 elections.

“I didn’t even have the chance to drive or touch that Toyota Hilux which is under Tabasa’s name,“ he added.