Davao police to conduct forced dispersal of rallying KOJC members
Davao police will disperse Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) members who held a rally outside their church compound within the day, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said Monday.
“Well, definitely there will be forced dispersal within the day and we don’t want the tensions to get worse,” PNP spokesperson Col. Jean Fajardo said at a briefing.
“I hope the members of the KOJC, particularly their leaders, would head the request of the PNP. We are also calling on the LGU (local government unit) of Davao to help us. It is not right to use fire trucks, heavy equipment, and private vehicles to block the path to inconvenience the citizens of Davao,” she said.
Fajardo said negotiations for a peaceful dispersal are ongoing.
“They will be given ample time to remove the stage they set up in the middle of the street, the people who placed chairs there, and those who set up barricades, as well as the vehicles. These are all being documented to support the possible filing of criminal charges against those responsible for this situation,” Fajardo said.
According to Fajardo, the PNP did not instigate the tension and they have videos to prove that KOJC members were hurting themselves to shift the blame to the police.
“To set the record straight we did not start the trouble,” Fajardo said.
“We currently have a video showing that in one area, their own members are inflicting injuries on each other to show and blame our police for those injuries. We are just waiting to authenticate this video to demonstrate how desperate these people are to make it appear that our police are abusing and hurting them,” she said.
“On the contrary, our police officers have been cursed at, kicked, and assaulted in every possible way, yet they maintained their composure. They upheld self-restraint and maximum tolerance as instructed by our PNP Chief,” she added.
Fajardo said they are continuing the search for Quiboloy, who is still believed to be at the KOJC compound.
“For now, we are continuing the search. There is a particular area where we are putting our concentration on because we are using groundbreaking penetrating radar. This is used when there is a calamity and we are searching for signs of life,” Fajardo said.
“There is an area which we estimate is 20 to 30 meters from the ground where a sign of life was detected. So that’s where we are putting our concentration on and we believe we are about to see who is being detected by our penetrating radar,” she added. Jaspearl Tan/DMS
