By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga
A 23-year-old fishball vendor plans to file charges against Toboso Mayor Richard Jaojoco, claiming the latter mauling him and a 17-year-old minor.
Based on the Toboso Municipal Police Station blotter report, Marjohn Canizares, a resident of the town’s Barangay Poblacion, reported he and the minor were woken up in their home around 3:00 a.m. last Thursday by two armed men, believed to be bodyguards for Jaojoco.
The two were later identified as Dodong Tiham and Police Officer 2 Orvil Leyte.
According to the blotter, “A certain Butch Leyte and his unidentified companion force Canizeras and the minor to be with them at the house of Tatet Tisay.”
The report went on to say, upon arriving at Tisay’s home, Canizares said he saw the mayor there.
He went on to claim Jaojoco slapped, punched, and hit him with a plastic chair.
In a radio interview, Toboso Municipal Police Station director, Police Chief Inspector Joery Puerto, dismissed Canizares’s claims.
“There [is] no truth [to] the allegation [by] Canizares,” the police chief said. “It’s all politics [intended] to destroy Jaojoco” – a position echoed by the mayor himself.
Puerto recalled, the mayor confronted Canizares that night regarding an indiscriminate firing incident that occurred last month. Despite earlier denying being the shooter, Canizares eventually admitted to Jaojoco that he fired an improvised firearm. He later surrendered to law enforcement the following day./DGB, WDJ