ALBUERA Mayor Rolando Espinosa, accused by President Rodrigo Duterte of drug trafficking, said he feared for his life when he surrendered to the police in August.
At dawn Saturday, that fear proved well founded when police shot the mayor dead inside his jail cell at the Baybay City Provincial Jail in Leyte in what they said was a shootout.
Espinosa was the second local executive implicated in drugs to be killed in the last two weeks.
Initial reports said members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group were serving search warrants on Espinosa and drug suspect Raul Yap for separate cases shortly after 4 a.m., when the two allegedly fired on the cops, triggering a shootout in which the two detainees were shot dead.
Police said they recovered a .45 cal. pistol and a .38 Super pistol from the cells of Yap and Espinosa. A small sachet containing suspected methamphetamine and assorted drug paraphernalia were also found inside Espinosa’s cell, they said.
Earlier, Espinosa had denied any part in the drug trade but said his son Kerwin was peddling “shabu” (methamphetamine), which he got from a jailed Chinese drug trader.
Kerwin, said to be among the biggest illegal drug operators in Eastern Visayas, was arrested by Abu Dhabi police last month and has not yet been repatriated.
The Palace said Espinosa’s death was “unfortunate” and said an investigation was ongoing—hardly an assurance that the truth will out, given that it is the police themselves who will be investigating the case.
On the face of it, the circumstances of Espinosa’s death last week are enough to provoke suspicion.
How is it, for instance, that a shootout would ensue inside a provincial jail, where inmates are not supposed to be armed?
Why, too, did the CIDG team choose to serve search warrants at 4:10 a.m.? The ungodly hour chosen to serve the warrants seems to suggest a clandestine operation, not a regular police action.
What impact will Espinosa’s death have on his son Kerwin, whom the Justice department wants to use as a state witness to implicate top government officials in illegal drug activities?
Espinosa’s killing becomes doubly suspicious, coming as it does on the heels of the Oct. 28 shooting death of another local executive on the President’s list of drug suspects, Saudi Ampatuan Mayor Samsudin Dimaukom.
Dimaukom and nine of his men were killed in a shootout with police in Makilala, North Cotabato, that the mayor’s relatives now say was a rubout.
Given all these suspicious circumstances, a credible, independent investigation is the bare minimum required. The question is, is there anybody left in this government that can be counted upon to do the job right?