CEBU CITY -- A family from Barangay Cabancalan, Mandaue City claimed Thursday ownership of the jewelry pieces that scavengers found in the Barangay Umapad dumpsite last week.
The family of Vicente H. Tan, a businessman, will go to the Mandaue City Police Office (MCPO) today, Friday, to claim the items, which according to police estimate, cost some P2 million.
But Tan’s family may only be able to bring home one class ring out of the seven pieces of jewelry found at the dumpsite last January 12.
Inspector Ramil Morpus of the MCPO Investigation and Detective Management Branch (IDMB) said they will not release the other items to the Tan family unless they can present a proof of ownership to establish their claim.
He said the family should show a receipt or any document that can prove that they own the jewelry items.
Lawyer Inocencio dela Cerna, who represents the Tan family, said they are prepared to seek legal remedies and file a civil suit to recover the items, should the police refuse to turn these over to the Tans.
With the help of the University of San Carlos (USC), MCPO officials confirmed Thursday Tan’s ownership of the gold class ring, which is engraved with his name.
Morpus said USC Records Section head Evelyn Badilles confirmed that Tan was among the 13 graduates of the university’s commerce program in 1952.
Tan owns a dried mangoes business in Barangay Cabancalan, and a pharmacy and garments RTW business in Cebu City.
Dela Cerna said they can explain how the jewelry ended up in the dumpsite.
He narrated that just a day before the scavengers found the items, Tan had asked his house help to clean one of their rooms, which had a shelf where the jewelry were placed.
Dela Cerna said when Tan checked the room, he found the shelves already infested with termites.
Seeing that the termites had eaten much of the wooden shelves, Tan had asked one of the house help to bring the shelves outside the house.
Dela Cerna said Tan, who had a major head surgery due to an accident two years ago, had suffered from constant memory lapse and may have forgotten that the items were in the shelves.
After taking the shelves outside their house, the house help placed the shelves in a steel barrel and set it on fire without checking its contents.
What remained of the shelves was then brought outside the family compound for the garbage truck to collect.
Dela Cerna said they have witnesses who can attest that the trash that contained jewelry and were found in the dumpsite were from Tan’s house.
He said Tan’s eldest daughter can also prove that the jewelry found by the scavengers is owned by their family.
Last January 12, scavenger Rodrigo Corta, 55, found two gold bracelets, a gold necklace and two gold rings from the heaps of garbage in the Umapad dumpsite.
Corta pawned one of the gold bracelets for P127,000.
Another scavenger Antonio Quizon, 48, found a gold bracelet studded with diamonds. Another scavenger, Eda Montecalvo, 24, found a gold bracelet and sold it for P15,000.
Last Tuesday, the police recovered the two gold rings, two bracelets and a necklace.
They also got P36,500 from Corta, which is part of the proceeds of the pawned item.
In a press conference Thursday, Morpus said while USC confirmed that the gold class ring indeed belongs to Tan, they cannot turn over the other items to his family.
Although his clients may seek legal remedies, dela Cerna clarified that they are not threatening the police with legal moves.
He said they might request the police to allow them to hold the jewelry “in trust” until another party comes forward to claim the items.
Dela Cerna also said Tan and his family have no plans of filing cases against the three scavengers. He disclosed that the family even plans to give the P36,500 back to the three scavengers as a way of thanking them for returning the items.
Morpus said they plan to turn over the jewelry to the Mandaue City Government if there are no claimants who can prove ownership of the jewelry.
In a separate interview, Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes said if the police decide to turn over the items to them, they will serve as temporary custodians of the jewelry and will publish a notice informing possible owners of the status of the jewelry.
And if there are still no claimants, Cortes said they will return the items to the scavengers who found them.
Cortes said, though, that he is still waiting for a legal opinion on what the City should do with the jewelry.
In a related development, representatives of the M. Lhuillier Pawnshop Inc. also went to the MCPO headquarters Thursday to take pictures of the jewelry.
Morpus said the pawnshop representatives are checking on the possibility that the recovered items are part of the loot from two separate robbery incidents involving their employees last year.
In 2011, robbers had victimized employees of the pawnshop chain twice, carting away millions worth of jewelry. (JKV of Sun.Star Cebu)
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