PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte said Wednesday there was nothing unusual in the death of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa and rejected punishment for the policemen involved in serving his arrest warrant and alleged shootout with him.
Speaking to reporters before leaving for Thailand and Malaysia, Duterte expressed no remorse over the death of Espinosa, an alleged drug lord.
“Why should I be puzzled? You have here a guy, a government employee using his office and money cooking shabu and destroying the lives of so many millions of Filipinos. So what is there for me to say about it?” he said.
Senator Leila de Lima wants the Senate to invite Ramon Espinosa, the elder brother of the slain Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa, but Senator Panfilo Lacson said he believe there was no need for his testimony because it would just be “hearsay.”
“He will just be testifying on hearsay,” Lacson said when asked if the elder Espinosa would be summoned to the Senate hearing on the circumstances surrounding the death of the Leyte town mayor.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said Rolando Espinosa’s affidavit implicating officials in the illegal drug trade of his son Kerwin had diminished its legal value following his death inside the jail last week.
He said the affidavit could no longer be used as evidence because the mayor would no longer be able to subscribe to it before a prosecutor or judge.
“It now becomes hearsay,” Aguirre said in a text message.
Before he was killed, the slain mayor revealed everything he knew about his son Kerwin’s illegal drug operations in Eastern Visayas in two sworn affidavits, including at least 50 individuals as protectors of his son.
The list includes government officials, policemen, military officers and even members of the media who allegedly received payola or drug money in exchange for coddling Kerwin’s businesses led by embattled Senator Leila de Lima.
Espinosa died after he allegedly fought it out with the policemen trying to serve a search warrant inside the Baybay City Jail in Leyte, where the mayor had been detained for drug-related charges.
Twenty operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, including 13 from CIDG Region 8 and eight Maritime Police, are under restrictive custody for their involvement in the shooting.
Duterte, however, declined to look further on the circumstances of the killings saying that would hinder police operations.