DAVAO Occidental Gov. Claude Bautista on Thursday named former congressman Marc Cagas as the drug personality that President Rodrigo Duterte referred to in his speech Wednesday.
“It is Marc Cagas. It was a known issue in Davao del Sur that he is an addict,” said Bautista, a rival of the congressman’s father, jailed Davao del Sur governor Douglas Cagas.
Bautista said Marc had already been put in a rehabilitation center three times.
“I don’t care if they file a case against me, his son is a drug dependent, a drug addict,” Bautista said of Cagas.
He said that Marc was untouchable when Cagas was governor, which was the reason the number of drug addicts in Davao del Sur ballooned.
Bautista ran for governor in 2010 but he was defeated by Cagas. In 2013, Bautista won the gubernatorial seat.
The Manila Standard repeatedly tried to contact Cagas, but text messages and phone calls were left unaswered.
In Tacloban City, the Philippine National Police regional command said it was preparing to file cases against Mayor Roland Espinosa Sr. of Albuera, Leyte, initially on drug-related charges and murder.
In a press briefing Thursday, PNP OIC regional director Chief Supt. Elmer Beltejar said the police had been gathering evidence that linked the mayor to previous killings.
“The PNP is ready to file a case against Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. because there are people willing to testify,” Beltejar said. “There are many willing witnesses coming out to provide vital information, unlike in the past, where people were scared to testify.”
The mayor and his son, Rolando Jr., known as Kerwin, reportedly controlled a private army.
Six of the mayor’s men were killed in a shootout with police outside the mayor’s home on Wednesday.
The armed group was reportedly behind the killings of the town’s former police chief, a newly-elected town councilor and a police asset. These killings took place between May and July this year.
On Thursday, police presented to the press some 21 assorted long firearms, 16 short firearms, hand grenades and ammunition seized after a firefight.
Some were turned over to the police by members of the Espinosa group, who surrendered to the police.
Espinosa is under police custody in Manila, after he surrendered, saying he feared for his life.
Earlier, President Duterte had warned Espinosa if he did not turn himself in, the police would shoot him on sight.
The mayor’s son Kerwin, who has been accused of being a big drug lord, is still at large.
Meanwhile, the vice mayor of Albuera, Rosa Meneses, said that a municipal official approached her saying “something might happen” to anyone who replaced Espinosa.
“I find that to be a threat. That’s why I was in hiding for two days,” Meneses said in a TV interview.
She said Espinosa did not designate her OIC before he went to Manila to surrender.
Meneses added that it was “common knowledge” that the mayor’s family had links to the illegal drug trade.
Meneses said several Espinosa supporters were accusing her of implicating him so she could take over as mayor.
Duterte had earlier called on the mayor and his son Kerwin “to surrender or be shot dead,” after Espinosa’s two bodyguards and three employees were arrested in a buy-bust operation that netted P1.9 million worth of shabu.
Mayor Espinosa surrendered Tuesday but denied any wrongdoing.
On Thursday, PNP chief Ronald dela Rosa said Kerwin Espinosa, whom the President identified as the “No. 1 drug lord in Eastern Visayas,” has sent surrender feelers.
The regional director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency said the younger Espinosa also manufactured narcotics in Cebu City before transferring his illicit business to Leyte.
The younger Espinosa is said to have flown to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on June 21, more than two weeks before Duterte assumed the presidency.
On Wednesday, President Duterte is ready to face any sanctions or trial before the United Nations regarding concerns about extrajudicial killings in connection with the government’s war on drugs.
“I am ready to face the UN, if you are ready to solve it for us. I am ready for you,” Duterte was quoted as saying.
He also challenged the UN to recommend actions on how to stop the drug menace in the country instead of condemning his anti-crime policies.
Hundreds of suspected drug users and pushers have been killed in an aggressive nationwide anti-drug campaign since Duterte took power with a pledge to wipe out lawlessness.
In a related development, former police general and now Daanbantayan Mayor Vicente Loot denied alleged links with the younger Espinosa, which reportedly popped up in an intelligence report submitted to President Duterte.
Loot, who was one of the five police generals linked by President Duterte to the illegal drug trade, said the so-called intelligence report was unbelievable.
He said he first heard the name of Espinosa in 2010 but he never met the man personally.
Loot also denied reports that he visited Espinosa during his arrest in Tacloban in 2015.
The PNP said Thursday that three unnamed mayors in Lanao del Sur, who were believed to have ties to the illegal drug trade, have been asked to surrender to the police or risk being killed.
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Police Director Chief Supt. Agripino Javier, however, did not identify the mayors.
Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo had earlier said that the President had named in a Cabinet meeting a total of 27 local chief executives, including governors and mayors who had been under surveillance.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency said Thursday that Peter Lim, a suspected drug lord who surrendered to Duterte, was the same on its list of targeted drug personalities.
Lim had earlier surrendered to the President, who let him go but asked him to subject himself to a National Bureau of Investigtion probe.
With Rio N. Araja and John Paolo Bencito