WHAT DOES JOVEN KNOW? Cop accused of twin murders wants to turn state witness

By Jennifer P. Rendon 

Police Corporal Joseph Andrew Joven, one of the four suspects in the murders of alleged drug personality Alain Muller and businessman Delfin Britanico, wants to become a state witness.

Could that be tantamount to admission of guilt on Joven’s part? The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) did not categorically answer.

Joven appeared at the NBI-Western Visayas Regional Office VI in Iloilo City evening of June 6, 2020, more than a week after he was charged before the Department of Justice along with three others for the double murders last January 19, 2020.

He was taken to the NBI Central Office in Metro Manila the following day.

Atty. Zulikha Marie Conales, agent on case of the NBI-Death Investigation Division, said they don’t consider Joven’s move as voluntary surrender.

“He is not yet an accused and wala din po s’yang warrant of arrest. He actually volunteered to be safe kept by the NBI. Safekeeping po ang nangyari,” Conales told Aksyon Radyo-Iloilo in an interview Monday morning.

She said they met with Joven who claimed that, “magsisiwalat daw po sya ng mga bagay na kanyang nalalaman tungkol sa kaso ni Muller at ni Britanico kaya po siya tinanggap.”

Conales explained that safekeeping “is a legal term for those people we charged and they want to talk to us in relation to the case filed against them.” Thus, safekeeping does not necessarily connote an outside or external threat against the person seeking such arrangement.

But Conales cited Joven’s words to NBI investigators: “Hinahanap daw sya ni ganito hinahanap ni ganyan (Someone is looking for him).”

She did not divulge much on that aspect, although there were reports that suspicious persons appeared to be lurking around Joven’s house even before the NBI determined who to charge for the twin murders.

While Joven has spilled what he allegedly knows about the cases, Conales said they did not get an official statement from him.

The policeman, who was marked absent without official leave (AWOL), allegedly named the members of their group.

But that allegation would still be subjected to evaluation and assessment.

The NBI released Joven from their custody on June 7 pending approval of his application in the Witness Protection Program (WPP).

On May 29, or more than four months after the twin murders, the NBI filed murder and theft charges against Joven, Police Corporal Jerry Villanueva, and two unidentified suspects.

Villanueva, a cop assigned to the PNP Regional Personnel Holding and Accounting Unit (RPHAU) based in Camp Delgado, Iloilo, was immediately placed under restrictive custody.

Joven, who was assigned to the ICPO Holding and Accounting Unit, has not reported for work sometime in March 2020 when the ICPO ordered random drug test on its personnel. He was later declared as AWOL for failure to undergo drug test.

In a statement after the filing of the case, the NBI said that “Joven admitted that he was the driver of the group.

Joven said that right after killing Muller, they stopped at a vacant lot in Nabitasan, La Paz to strip off the white stickers or decals from the Mitsubishi Adventure they used to throw off investigators from their trail.

Delfin Britanico later saw and confronted them, which led to his shooting.