TWO OF THE FOUR companions of Joavan Fernandez who were arrested with him last Tuesday have histories of drug cases.

Police said 28-year-old Alinor Mamao Andingan is actually named Brix Daligdig, who has a pending warrant of arrest for possession of illegal drugs issued by Regional Trial Court Judge Jesus dela Peña of Branch 27 in Jan. 26, 2005.

Another companion, identified as 46-year-old Wilfredo Abellana Vega of barangay Cansojong, Talisay City, had a previous arrest after he was found in the company of a suspected drug pusher in November 2005.

Vega and Andingan were arrested along with Quazar Bacaltos Quiachon, 33, Ryan Vega Alcover, 28, and Fernandez in Lapu-Lapu City last Tuesday.

They were riding in an Isuzu Bighorn sport utility vehicle driven by Fernandez in Lapu-Lapu City where police stopped the vehicle for traveling on the wrong lane, with sirens and blinkers active, and barely legible license plates due to a tinted glass cover.

When police confronted Fernandez, they spotted a .38-caliber revolver in the back seat and a briefcase full of shabu.

They have since been detained in the detention cells of the Police Regional Office?s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Central Visayas (CIDG-7) and charged for illegal possession of an unlicensed firearm, possession of illegal drugs, possession of drug paraphernalia, and disobedience to persons in authority.

Checking on the suspects? backgrounds, the Lapu-Lapu City Police Office (LLCPO) discovered that Andingan was actually Daligdig.

The CIDG-7 served Andingan the four-year-old arrest warrant in his detention cell yesterday.

Andingan denied being Daligdig. He admitted, however, that he knew there was a previous drug case against him, though denied knowledge of an arrest warrant being issued against him.

The check on Vega revealed that he was arrested by the police of neighboring Cebu City in 2005.

Chief Insp. George Ylanan, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detective Management Branch of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), said Vega was nabbed during a buy-bust operation in November 2005.

Ylanan said that the target of the operation was one Jovencio Repuerto, a suspected drug pusher. When the CCPO?s Vice Control Section, then headed by Ylanan, arrested Repuerto, Vega was at the scene as Rupuerto?s driver.

While Vega was charged, the case against him was eventually dismissed, Ylanan said.

Fernandez was visited by his adoptive father, Talisay City Mayor Socrates Fernandez, yesterday.

Mayor Fernandez, accompanied by his son?s wife, talked to his son for around 10 minutes inside the detention cell.

The mayor declined to be interviewed after leaving the cell.

The Bighorn that Fernandez was driving during his arrest was reportedly owned by the mayor. /WITH CORRESPONDENT CHITO O. ARAGON