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| Twenty-one policemen are under investigation for the killing of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa and a fellow inmate inside their detention cell in Leyte early Saturday morning. Philstar/AJ Bolando, File | By Jaime Laude |
MANILA, Philippines - Twenty-one policemen are under investigation for the killing of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa and a fellow inmate inside their detention cell in Leyte early Saturday morning.
The policemen had claimed they were forced to shoot Espinosa dead when the latter opened fire at them as they were about to serve a search warrant.
Espinosa’s cell mate Raul Yap also died in the brief firefight.
The incident happened at around 4 a.m. at the Leyte sub-provincial jail in Baybay City. The raiders claimed finding inside the cell after the shooting a handgun and several sachets of shabu.
Deputy Director General Francisco Uyami, Philippine National Police officer-in-charge and concurrent deputy PNP chief for administration, said 13 of the 21 policemen belong to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the rest were members of the PNP-Maritime Group, all based in Eastern Visayas.
The National Bureau Investigation (NBI), through its spokesman Ferdinand Lavin, said it would launch its own probe led by the agency’s Region 8 office chief Jerry Abiera.
“As a matter of standard procedure, the PNP has started investigating the incident to establish the facts and circumstances surrounding the involvement of the CIDG personnel led by Chief Insp. Leo Laraga,” Uyami said in a press briefing at Camp Crame yesterday.
Eastern Visayas CIDG regional director Senior Supt. Marvin Marcos defended the legality of the operation, stressing it was sanctioned by the court and that proper coordination was made with relevant authorities.
Basey Regional Trial Court Judge Tarcelo Sabarre issued the search warrants for illegal possession of drugs against Yap and for illegal possession of firearms against Espinosa, Marcos said.
He said he notified the CIDG headquarters at Camp Crame and the operations command center of the Eastern Visayas Regional Police Office of the operations.
“I texted the operation center of the Eastern Visayas Regional Police and also informed our office at Camp Crame while a local policeman at the Baybay City police received the copy of our coordination about the operation,” Marcos said.
He added that upon reaching Baybay City, the CIDG raiding team led by Laraga, in two marked police vehicles, coordinated with the local police before proceeding to the sub-provincial jail.
Upon arrival at the jail, he said his men presented a copy of the search warrants to the jail guards but were refused entry.
Marcos admitted the CIDG raiding team coordinated with jail authorities only upon their arrival at the sub-provincial jail so as to surprise the inmates suspected of dealing drugs while in detention.
One of the jail guards, Marcos said, even inserted a key into the lock of the jail’s gate and broke the key, leaving the CIDG raiding team with no option but to use a bolt cutter to gain entry.
Once inside the jail premises, the CIDG raiding teams – with the Maritime police outside for backup – ordered the jail guards to put down their long firearms.
Since it was still dark inside the jail facility, the policemen split into two groups – each tasked to serve the warrants on Espinosa and Yap.
Albuera police chief Maj. Jovy Espinido, for his part, expressed dismay at Espinosa’s death at the hands of law enforcers.
“We recovered cache of firearms and shabu when we raided his house yet he was not killed but for only one gun, he was shot dead,” Espinido said.
Had Espinosa been under the custody of the Albuera police, the mayor would not have been killed, he said.
The Eastern Visayas Regional Internal Affairs Service (RIAS), for its part, has formed a five-man team headed by Sr. Supt. Victor Ongkiko to investigate the incident.
“Given the peculiar context, this killing raises a lot of questions on the official accounts of CIDG,” Robredo said.
“The unlawful event even puts into question the integrity of the institution. Thus, we ask: who will police the police?” she said.
“We hope that this is not an indication of a nation failing to uphold the rule of law and a sovereign unable to protect its own citizens. We need to reinforce the trust of the people in our judicial system,” she said.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the government must exert efforts to protect Espinosa’s son Kerwin and secure a deposition from the latter.
Lacson said the killing of Espinosa could dissuade drug suspects from surrendering as their lives could be in greater danger. Kerwin is reportedly under the custody of the Interpol in Abu Dhabi.
He said there are strong indications that Kerwin’s life was in danger due to a pattern of killings prior to the alleged shooting of his father, including the assassination of his father’s lawyer and aide in separate incidents weeks ago.
“From the reports that I read and heard, all the signs of summary killings are there,” Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop, chairman of the House of Representatives’ committee on public order and safety, told reporters in a news conference.
Aside from the rising death toll in the war on drugs, the killing of Espinosa right inside his prison cell only means there is no more need to re-impose death penalty, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said.
“When a person who is in prison pending his prosecution for a non-bailable crime, like Espinosa, is summarily executed in his own cell, then the projected re-imposition of the death penalty is a useless formality,” Lagman said.
“It will not even serve as formalin on the piling cadavers of victims of extrajudicial killings.”
“President Duterte must forthwith create an independent commission of retired jurists to investigate and recommend the prosecution of those found to be culpable for the unabated extrajudicial killings,” the lawmaker proposed.
“Police officers are fast becoming brutal monsters on account of the culture of killings and death fomented by the administration,” Rep. Lito Atienza said.
“We’re counting on the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur to investigate the killing of the mayor, along with Mindoro Oriental anticrime crusader Zenaida Luz.”
Meanwhile, several inmates who testified in investigations on the illegal drug trade at the NBP are now fearing for their lives, said lawyer Ferdinand Topacio.
Topacio is the lawyer of eight inmates who submitted affidavits to the Department of Justice and testified before the House of Representatives inquiry implicating Sen. Leila de Lima and other former DOJ and Bureau of Corrections officials in the NBP drug trade, including Herbert Colanggo, Peter Co, Vicente Sy, Jojo Baligad, Noel Martinez, German Agojo, Joel Capones and Jerry Pepino.
He said his clients “have expressed to me their grave concern over the killing of Mayor Rolando Espinosa while in jail under what can only be termed as highly suspicious circumstances.”
The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) also condemned Espinosa’s killing.
“There are strong indications that what happened was cold-blooded murder,” Bayan secretary-general Renato Reyes said. With Edu Punay, Delon Porcalla, Rhodina Villanueva, Miriam Desacada, Paolo Romero, Helen Flores, Ghio Ong
The policemen had claimed they were forced to shoot Espinosa dead when the latter opened fire at them as they were about to serve a search warrant.
Espinosa’s cell mate Raul Yap also died in the brief firefight.
The incident happened at around 4 a.m. at the Leyte sub-provincial jail in Baybay City. The raiders claimed finding inside the cell after the shooting a handgun and several sachets of shabu.
Deputy Director General Francisco Uyami, Philippine National Police officer-in-charge and concurrent deputy PNP chief for administration, said 13 of the 21 policemen belong to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the rest were members of the PNP-Maritime Group, all based in Eastern Visayas.
The National Bureau Investigation (NBI), through its spokesman Ferdinand Lavin, said it would launch its own probe led by the agency’s Region 8 office chief Jerry Abiera.
Eastern Visayas CIDG regional director Senior Supt. Marvin Marcos defended the legality of the operation, stressing it was sanctioned by the court and that proper coordination was made with relevant authorities.
Basey Regional Trial Court Judge Tarcelo Sabarre issued the search warrants for illegal possession of drugs against Yap and for illegal possession of firearms against Espinosa, Marcos said.
He said he notified the CIDG headquarters at Camp Crame and the operations command center of the Eastern Visayas Regional Police Office of the operations.
“I texted the operation center of the Eastern Visayas Regional Police and also informed our office at Camp Crame while a local policeman at the Baybay City police received the copy of our coordination about the operation,” Marcos said.
He added that upon reaching Baybay City, the CIDG raiding team led by Laraga, in two marked police vehicles, coordinated with the local police before proceeding to the sub-provincial jail.
Upon arrival at the jail, he said his men presented a copy of the search warrants to the jail guards but were refused entry.
Marcos admitted the CIDG raiding team coordinated with jail authorities only upon their arrival at the sub-provincial jail so as to surprise the inmates suspected of dealing drugs while in detention.
One of the jail guards, Marcos said, even inserted a key into the lock of the jail’s gate and broke the key, leaving the CIDG raiding team with no option but to use a bolt cutter to gain entry.
Once inside the jail premises, the CIDG raiding teams – with the Maritime police outside for backup – ordered the jail guards to put down their long firearms.
Since it was still dark inside the jail facility, the policemen split into two groups – each tasked to serve the warrants on Espinosa and Yap.
Albuera police chief Maj. Jovy Espinido, for his part, expressed dismay at Espinosa’s death at the hands of law enforcers.
“We recovered cache of firearms and shabu when we raided his house yet he was not killed but for only one gun, he was shot dead,” Espinido said.
Had Espinosa been under the custody of the Albuera police, the mayor would not have been killed, he said.
The Eastern Visayas Regional Internal Affairs Service (RIAS), for its part, has formed a five-man team headed by Sr. Supt. Victor Ongkiko to investigate the incident.
‘Thorough, swift’
Vice President Leni Robredo, for her part, called for a “thorough, fair and swift” investigation into the killing of Espinosa and Yap.“Given the peculiar context, this killing raises a lot of questions on the official accounts of CIDG,” Robredo said.
“The unlawful event even puts into question the integrity of the institution. Thus, we ask: who will police the police?” she said.
“We hope that this is not an indication of a nation failing to uphold the rule of law and a sovereign unable to protect its own citizens. We need to reinforce the trust of the people in our judicial system,” she said.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the government must exert efforts to protect Espinosa’s son Kerwin and secure a deposition from the latter.
Lacson said the killing of Espinosa could dissuade drug suspects from surrendering as their lives could be in greater danger. Kerwin is reportedly under the custody of the Interpol in Abu Dhabi.
He said there are strong indications that Kerwin’s life was in danger due to a pattern of killings prior to the alleged shooting of his father, including the assassination of his father’s lawyer and aide in separate incidents weeks ago.
“From the reports that I read and heard, all the signs of summary killings are there,” Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop, chairman of the House of Representatives’ committee on public order and safety, told reporters in a news conference.
Aside from the rising death toll in the war on drugs, the killing of Espinosa right inside his prison cell only means there is no more need to re-impose death penalty, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said.
“When a person who is in prison pending his prosecution for a non-bailable crime, like Espinosa, is summarily executed in his own cell, then the projected re-imposition of the death penalty is a useless formality,” Lagman said.
“It will not even serve as formalin on the piling cadavers of victims of extrajudicial killings.”
“President Duterte must forthwith create an independent commission of retired jurists to investigate and recommend the prosecution of those found to be culpable for the unabated extrajudicial killings,” the lawmaker proposed.
“Police officers are fast becoming brutal monsters on account of the culture of killings and death fomented by the administration,” Rep. Lito Atienza said.
“We’re counting on the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur to investigate the killing of the mayor, along with Mindoro Oriental anticrime crusader Zenaida Luz.”
Meanwhile, several inmates who testified in investigations on the illegal drug trade at the NBP are now fearing for their lives, said lawyer Ferdinand Topacio.
Topacio is the lawyer of eight inmates who submitted affidavits to the Department of Justice and testified before the House of Representatives inquiry implicating Sen. Leila de Lima and other former DOJ and Bureau of Corrections officials in the NBP drug trade, including Herbert Colanggo, Peter Co, Vicente Sy, Jojo Baligad, Noel Martinez, German Agojo, Joel Capones and Jerry Pepino.
He said his clients “have expressed to me their grave concern over the killing of Mayor Rolando Espinosa while in jail under what can only be termed as highly suspicious circumstances.”
The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) also condemned Espinosa’s killing.
“There are strong indications that what happened was cold-blooded murder,” Bayan secretary-general Renato Reyes said. With Edu Punay, Delon Porcalla, Rhodina Villanueva, Miriam Desacada, Paolo Romero, Helen Flores, Ghio Ong
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