BACK IN THE DAY Then Philippine National Police chief and now Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa presents Kerwin Espinosa as a suspected drug lord during a press conference at Camp Crame, in this photo taken on Nov. 18, 2016, a month after Espinosa was arrested in Abu Dhabi. —INQUIRER PHOTO
Confessed drug lord Rolan “Kerwin” Espinosa on Friday said former Philippine National Police chief and now Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa had threatened him into naming then Sen. Leila de Lima as a “protector” of illegal drug syndicates, claiming that the government’s war on drugs was just a tool to browbeat former President Rodrigo Duterte’s critics.
Facing the House quad committee looking into the government’s war on drugs and crimes linked to Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos), Espinosa said he also believed that Duterte himself had ordered the killing of his father, then Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr., who was shot dead while in detention at the Leyte subprovincial jail in Baybay City in November 2016.
The National Bureau of Investigation had previously declared the killing was a case of “rubout.”
Espinosa, who is running for mayor of Albuera, said Dela Rosa also pressured him into linking Cebu City businessman Peter Lim, former Leyte Rep. Vicente Veloso III and retired Police Brig. Gen. Vicente Loot, among others, in drug trafficking.
“[Dela Rosa] ordered me to admit that I was involved in the illegal drug trade in the Philippines and implicate Peter Lim and Leila de Lima to pin them down,” Espinosa told the House supercommittee led by Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, the chair of the committee on dangerous drugs.
“I was shaken at the time. I didn’t know what to do … He said that if I do not follow the plan, I will end up like my father or a member of my family will also be killed,” he said.
‘Liar,’ ‘stupid’
Sought for comment on Friday, an angry Dela Rosa rejected Espinosa’s claims as he maintained that the latest witness of the special House body was a drug lord.
“Tell [Espinosa] that I will punch him in the face if I see him. He’s really a liar,” Dela Rosa told reporters in a mobile phone interview.
“Even if the cases against him were dismissed, still he remains to be a drug lord. The people knew that he was operating illegal drugs in Albuera even while he was in detention,” he said.
Dela Rosa said he only visited Espinosa once to ask him about his allegation that Lt. Col. Jovie Espenido, then the chief of police of Albuera, had also received money from the Espinosas.
“[Espinosa is] stupid by making up these stories. He’s acting as if he’s a clean person,” the senator said.
Dela Rosa also repeated his previous remarks that he would “never, never, never” appear at the investigation by the House quad committee composed of the committees on dangerous drugs, on public order and safety, on human rights and on public accounts.
No choice
Upon questioning by Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro, Espinosa said he did not have any choice but to follow Dela Rosa’s order.
“Of course, I obliged. Anyone here would have done the same in exchange for your life, especially if you have young children like I do,” he said, adding: “I just did what I was instructed to save my family because the PNP [chief] was threatening me.”
In his testimony, Espinosa said Dela Rosa personally gave him the instructions when the latter met him at the airport after he was sent back to the Philippines following his arrest in Abu Dhabi in November 2016.
According to him, the then PNP chief led him to a waiting white sport utility vehicle where Dela Rosa, in front of two other police officers whom he did not identify, supposedly told him what to say.
Apology
Espinosa, during the hearing, apologized to De Lima, who spent almost seven years in detention before the three Muntinlupa City courts acquitted her of drug-related charges.
Speaking in a mix of Filipino and Bisaya, he said: “From the bottom of my heart, I ask [for forgiveness]. I’m really sorry … I was fooled and was made to implicate you without basis.”
Espinosa also believed that Duterte was aware that Dela Rosa had forced him to make up stories against De Lima and provide false testimony during the Senate inquiry into the illegal drug trade inside the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa when she was still the justice secretary.
He turned emotional as he insisted that his slain father was among the victims of extrajudicial killings that marred the Duterte administration’s antinarcotics campaign.
“My father pleaded to the policemen to spare his life. But they killed him anyway,” Espinosa said, sobbing.
From ‘higher authority’
“I decided to face the House quad committee to seek justice for my father. They killed him like an animal,” he added.
Fielding questions from Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante, who chairs the House committee on human rights, Espinosa said Dela Rosa and the other PNP officers who carried out the drug war killings were only complying with the order from the “higher authority.”
When Abante asked who he was referring to, Espinosa said there was no other higher official that Dela Rosa was reporting to besides Duterte.
Asked who wanted his father dead, Espinosa responded: “All of us Filipinos watched the former President warning on television that he will kill all those named in his narcolist.”
“Based on my understanding, it was the former President who ordered the killing of my father,” he said.