EARLY this week, City Mayor Jesse M. Robredo finally decided to call for a press conference to show the sketches of the suspects in the Jollibee heist to which Camarines Sur Police Director Superintendent Romeo Tambungui reacted stating that such a disclosure would militate against the arrest of the suspects.

        In the November 5, 2007 bloody hold-up at the Jollibee Panganiban branch in Naga City, MetroBank security escort Rowenel Gavarra was shot dead while the fast food’s security guard Joey Robarios was wounded when a gang of armed robbers snatched and sped off with the money bag containing some P210,000 of the roving bank teller who had just collected for deposit the cash the fast food had after a long weekend.

        Tambungui fidgeted at the disclosure, perhaps because the city chief executive carried all before him to it. As early as last week, Mayor Robredo and City Public Safety Office (CPSO) Executive Director Lito del Rosario had already on their hands the sketches of the suspects but were keeping them close to their chest while still gathering more evidence. The wait for two weeks was long and sad enough — sad hours seem long, Shakespeare wrote — should the City Mayor give no assurance to the public that the probe on the heist has substantial results. He could not wait for another week or for Tambungui to decide when to make the disclosure public.

        Tambungui fidgeted at the disclosure perhaps because he missed the chance to redeem himself from the impression that his office was getting nowhere in the probe of the heist. When the 43 members of the Camarines Sur Bankers Club (CSBC) trooped to the provincial police office (PPO) Tuesday afternoon last week, all that Tambungui could mutter were assurances that the police had “very hot” leads and that very soon cases would be filed against the culprits. However, he did not set a timeframe. Instead he waxed on the uneasy 1:1,450 police-population ratio compared to the ideal 1:500.

        Tambungui fidgeted at the disclosure perhaps because the press conference of the mayor was a slap on Tambungui’s face. He was not even with the mayor when the press conference was held. His presence in the press conference would have been face-saving and would have given the semblance that the City Mayor was making statements based on the findings of the police. As is, it was a subtle way of telling the Provincial Police Director that his hands in the probe were slow to the draw, too slow for comfort, and that the disclosure would not in any way affect the arrest of the suspects who are already on the run.

        The disclosure of the suspects by Mayor Robredo is a loud assertion that he is still the chief of the chief of police in Naga City, that the police is civilian in character and that the city, being the investment center in the region, should be given fast and furious assurance of its security.

        In making public the sketches of the suspects in the Jollibee Panganiban branch heist, the Mayor is setting the example that for governance to be effective, service must be fast, sure, and scrupulous.

        Handled by less aggressive hands and by one of not much consequence, the probe could have gone beyond square one and the suspects could have been until this time mere John Does.

        Mayor Robredo wouldn’t prefer to be treated in matters involving investigation and intelligence operation like the chief of a crowd of clowns reading newspapers.