Bato guarantees safety of Kerwin

Crime scene investigators, stand by.

Alleged drug lord Kerwin Espinosa is arriving in Manila on Thursday, after being deported from Abu Dhabi.

The Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) are vying for the job of protecting him—
from people who want to silence him.

PNP Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa on Monday gave assurance that Espinosa would live, unlike Espinosa’s father, Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr., who was killed in what police claimed was a “shootout” with officers inside his cell in a Leyte jail before dawn on Nov. 5.

Incredible story

That’s an incredible story, and even senators on the committee on public order and dangerous drugs, which opened an inquiry into the killing on Nov. 10, just could not believe it.

Mayor Espinosa surrendered to the PNP after being publicly linked to illegal drugs in August. He denied the allegation but disclosed that it was his son Kerwin who was into the narcotics business.

He was released, but was arrested and detained after being indicted on drug and weapons charges. He submitted a statement linking 226 politicians and policemen, including seven narcotics officials, to his son’s drug trade.

Before dawn on Nov. 5, officers from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Eastern Visayas (Region 8), armed with search warrants, raided Espinosa’s cell and the cell of another inmate, Raul Yap, in the Leyte subprovincial jail in Baybay City.

CIDG-8 claimed the policemen were looking for guns and drugs but Espinosa and Yap fired at the cops, who fired back, killing the two men.

‘Premeditated’

The senators heard testimony that the policemen entered the jail at 4:30 a.m. But before they did, they first called crime scene investigators to the jail. That was 3:49 a.m.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, the committee chair, likened the situation to calling the funeral parlor while the patient is still alive.

“There’s only one word to describe this: premeditated,” Lacson said.

Dela Rosa promised nothing like that would happen to Kerwin, who fled the Philippines in August but was arrested in Abu Dhabi.

“He will not die. I guarantee that,” the PNP chief told reporters.

From the airport, he said, Kerwin will be taken directly to Camp Crame, where he will be detained, Dela Rosa said.

NBI wants him, too

But the Department of Justice, he said, wants Kerwin to be held at the NBI detention center.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II confirmed the information, saying the NBI may get the job considering “CIDG people” were involved in the elder Espinosa’s death.

But nothing’s final, he said. —WITH A REPORT FROM AIE BALAGTAS SEE