The drift of the senators’ queries in yesterday’s hearing was clear. For them the police killing of high-profile narco-indictee Mayor Rolando Espinosa right inside his jail cell undoubtedly was a rubout. What they wanted to know was who ordered it and why.
Incredible for the senators was the police version of the killing. Unprecedented was how policemen forced their way into the Leyte provincial jail purportedly to disarm detainee Espinosa. Uncharacteristic of cops was that they first procured a search warrant from a judge in faraway Western Samar province, then rushed to raid the jail three-and-a-half hours or more than a hundred kilometers away by rough road, at 4 a.m. at that. It would have been easier, and in proper procedure, to request the jail warden to check out a tip from a police informant that Espinosa and a fellow-detainee in an adjacent cell were keeping handguns and sachets of meth behind bars.
The police and jail officials’ versions also were contradictory. The jail guards said they were disarmed and ordered to kneel facing the wall as the police raiders proceeded to assassinate Espinosa and the other detainee. The cops countered that the guards were uncooperative, because their warden was on Espinosa’s drug payola. His name was among 242 politicians, lawmen, military officers, and newsmen in a black book confiscated last Aug. from the house of Espinosa in Albuera town, Leyte. Then again, the name of one of the police raiders’ superiors also was in that list. That officer also is among 223 influential friends on Facebook of Espinosa’s son Rolando Jr., alias Kerwin, allegedly the top narco-trafficker of Eastern Visayas.
There is no such thing as a perfect crime, said Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chairman of the investigating committee on public safety and illegal drugs. He knows whereof he speaks, as a former National Police chief. That the jailhouse’s CCTV recorder went missing after the police raid does not deter his probe. There will be proof later of the rubout, he is sure. Among these are lapses, like the raiders failing to coordinate their operation with the local police and jail officers, but calling in the Scene-of-Crime-Officer to investigate a full 40 minutes before they shot Espinosa. This was ferreted out on questioning by Sen. Franklin Drilon.
Who ordered the killing and why? Lacson suspects that Espinosa was silenced by drug syndicate bosses and accomplices in government. Espinosa had sworn by two affidavits detailing the drug operations of his son and identifying the uniformed and elected protectors. “The probative value of those testimonies are weakened by Espinosa’s death,” Lacson rues. Before Espinosa was killed, his lawyer and minor-aged female companion, Kerwin’s ex-wife, and two alleged drug associates also separately were shot dead by hooded gunmen.
Sen. Manny Pacquiao, while sharing Lacson’s suspicion, believes that the cops also might have done in Espinosa to get promoted. President Rodrigo Duterte and National Police chief Ronald dela Rosa regard highly officers who are able to neutralize narco-politicos. Espinosa was listed as a high-value target, just that he had preempted assassins by surrendering to the cops in Aug., then ratting on the syndicates. The police raid on the jail just happened to be bungled.
Sen. Leila de Lima is bent on pinning the killing on the Duterte administration. She accuses the President of encouraging extrajudicial killings in the war on drugs. Supposedly people are turning disgruntled that Duterte’s cops and supposedly aligned vigilantes have slain more than 3,000 mostly poor folk. Those slain in police operations invariably are said to have fought back with rusty .38-caliber revolvers or tried to grab police handguns while handcuffed and sandwiched between the arresting officers. The administration had to switch strategies, De Lima claims, and so is now also killing big fish like Espinosa. A week before him, also slain in a supposed shootout at a police checkpoint was an alleged narco-trading mayor in Maguindanao province and eight bodyguards.
De Lima’s motives are being questioned, though. Duterte alleges that she is a narco-protector. The House of Representatives has just concluded an inquiry of narco-trafficking from behind bars, in which De Lima was identified by prison officials and convicts as having induced them into the illegal trade to raise election campaign funds for her in 2015-2016. De Lima is among those in the affidavits of the slain Espinosa.
Duterte’s volubility is working against him. In exposing a narco-list, he read out the names of father and son Espinosa, with orders for the police to shoot them on sight should they resist arrest. In a later speech Duterte said he has an army hit squad tasked to kill the mayor, just that the latter had surrendered. After Espinosa’s killing, Duterte automatically sided with the cops, disavowing any overkill, and disagreeing with the relief of the raiders from their posts.
Whatever the outcome of the probe, many Filipinos already have made up their minds. Sure, they want an end to the drug trade, but not to the extent of random killings. For sooner or later ordinary folk are bound to be killed too, as they already are, on mere suspicion or mistaken identity. More so since the police have not reformed anyway, but merely taken over by a new chief. That is why they believe that the killings, including Espinosa’s, was the result of impunity.
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