A regional trial court (RTC) in Leyte province has granted the petition of self-confessed drug lord Rolan “Kerwin” Espinosa and four other co-accused to post bail over charges they engaged in the illegal drug trade.
Baybay City RTC Branch 14 Presiding Judge Carlos Arguelles, in an order dated June 13, 2023, allowed the bail petition of Espinosa, Brian Anthony Zaldivar, Alfred Cres Batistis, Jose Antipuesto, and Marcelo Adorco, amounting to P700,000 each for their respective provisional liberty.
This was due to the “failure of the prosecution to prove that evidence of guilt against them is strong,” Arguelles said in his ruling.
Espinosa, however, will still remain behind bars because he is still facing two other non-bailable cases before the Manila RTC — one for drugs and another for illegal possession of firearms and explosives — according to his lawyer Raymund Palad.
The court said the extrajudicial confession of the accused cannot be considered strong evidence of guilt against them “in the absence of corpus delicti (body of the crime or body of evidence).”
“Sifting and scouring through the tangled web of the prosecution evidence, this Court does not find any corroboration. There were no eyewitnesses in the commission of the crime that would positively identify Espinosa and his co-accused of having committed the crime charged,” it added.
In August 2021, the Department of Justice indicted Espinosa, Zaldivar, Batistis, Antipuesto, Adorco, and several others over the illegal drug trade in Eastern Visayas. One of the charges against Espinosa was later dismissed in December 2021.
Earlier this month, a Makati City court also acquitted Espinosa and Adorco of a similar charge after the prosecution failed to provide sufficient evidence.
In 2022, Espinosa also recanted his allegations against former Senator Leila de Lima, saying he was “coerced, pressured, intimidated, and seriously threatened” by the police to implicate the ex-legislator.