Mayor linked to drugs donates mansion for use as rehab center

Albuera police director Chief Insp. Jove Espenido shows a drawing of the proposed drug rehabilitation center that would rise inside the residential compound of Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. —ROBERT DEJON

ALBUERA, Leyte—This third class municipality would have its first rehabilitation center for drug dependents inside a compound owned by the mayor, Rolando Espinosa Sr., who had been arrested for alleged involvement in drugs and whose son, Kerwin, has been tagged as Eastern Visayas’ biggest drug lord.

Espinosa, in a phone interview, said he had donated his family’s mansion in the village of Benolho to the Philippine National Police for conversion into a drug rehabilitation center.

The deed of donation is being processed and completed in a few days, said the mayor.

Espinosa, who has been detained at the Leyte sub-provincial in Baybay City following his arrest for drug and unlicensed firearm possession, said it was his and his family’s way of showing they have given up their roles in the drug trade.

The donation, he said, is also in recognition of the need for a rehabilitation center in the town where at least 70 drug dependents had surrendered but have nowhere to go.

The mayor’s family owns a 3,700 square meter residential compound which police suspect to be from the proceeds of drug sales that Kerwin had accumulated since the early 2000s.

The compound houses a single-story mansion with four bedrooms and is 50 meters away from two more houses—Kerwin’s and the mayor’s.

The mansion has a stage where the Espinosas host Masses and parties. Outside the house is a tent for cockfighting.

Inside the compound, police had found six jet skis, a speedboat and several cars said to belong to Kerwin.

Chief Insp. Jove Espenido, municipal police chief, said the mansion would be used as office and billeting area for workers of the rehabilitation center.

The center, to be built starting next month, would be designed to accommodate 100 dependents, Espenido said.

On the parking lot would rise a single-story house for male drug dependents. An existing structure at the back of the building would be converted into a dormitory for female patients.

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