De Leon gives SITG Navarro one month to solve Clarin mayor’s slay

Police cordon the area along M. Velez St., Cebu City where Mayor David Navarro (draped in white cloth), was ambushed and killed on Oct. 25, 2019. |CDND Photo/ Raul Tabanao

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) created to solve the ambush-slay of  Clarin, Misamis Occidental Mayor David Navarro was given one month to solve the case and identify the suspects.

Police Brigadier General Valeriano De Leon, director of Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), told reporters on Monday, October 28, 2019,  the one-month deadline include means the case has to be wrapped up within that period, with no important detail left out, including the identities of the assailants.

“Let’s give them time to calibrate more informations,” said De Leon, to explain the monthlong deadline he set for SITG Navarro, which is headed by Police Colonel Gemma Vinluan, the chief of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO)>

After a month, De Leon said that there will be continuous investigation, which will eventually lead to the motive of the killings and other details leading to and after Navarro’s death.

Navarro, who arrived in Cebu on October 22, was supposed to hold an executive-legislative planning session with his staff when he was arrested on October 24, after a massage therapist filed complaints against him for assault, an incident that was caught on the CCTV camera of the establishment.

Read more: How and why Clarin mayor was arrested in Cebu City

He was on his way to the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office escorted by CCPO on October 25 when a van loaded by heavily armed men in black masks blocked the police vehicle along M. Velez Street and began firing towards the mobile patrol that Navarro boarded, and the van behind with his the mayor’s escorts.

Navarro was shot in the head at close range. Four others, including two policemen, were injured in the attack. The assailants fled immediately after to still unknown directions.

Read more: Ten armed men involved in Clarin mayor’s ambush-slay, says policeman

Vinluan, who was with De Leon during  Monday morning press briefing, said they needed the family of Navarro to also cooperate in the investigation.

Vinluan said said that even if the family of the slain mayor has expressed disinterest in pursuing the case,  they could have information vital to solving the ambush-slay.

“We really need to convince them to say something,” said Vinluan.

According to Vinluan, they were not informed about the previous threats that Navarro allegedly received prior to him being escorted to the prosecutor’s office for the inquest proceedings for the assault case.

She said they only learned about it from Navarro’s aide after the mayor was killed.

Vinluan added that the family only gave an affidavit narrating the actual attack  and not the background of possible persons of interest in the murder.

Police Colonel Geovanie Maines, PRO-7 deputy regional director for operations, told reporters that the cellular phone of Navarro is now under the custody of the Regional Anti-cyber Crime Office in Central Visayas. Its content will be scrutinized to find out if it contained some leads into solving Navarro’s murder.

Read more: PRO-7 pursues probe on Clarin mayor ambush-slay amid family’s disinterest to find culprits

De Leon also called on the public who have raised concern over the police’s competency and have speculated who could be responsible for the murder to “just wait for (the results) of the investigation.”

With the rising issue about the lapse of security, De Leon said that the policemen who escorted Navarro to the prosecutor’s office  were also under investigation.

“If there was clear security lapse we will investigate,” he said./elb