Lacson welcomes SC probe on Espinosa death

Senator Panfilo Lacson welcomed on Wednesday the move of the Supreme Court to look into the issuance of a judge of search warrants to a police team that raided Saturday the cell of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr., who in turn ended up dead at its hands.

Lacson said he intended to ask in Thursday’s Senate inquiry into Espinosa’s killing on the matter of the search warrants that were issued to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) to raid a provincial jail in Baybay, Leyte by a judge that happened to be based in Samar.

Espinosa was gunned down at dawn of Saturday by a CIDG team after he allegedly fired at them while they allegedly tried to serve two search warrants in his prison cell at Leyte’s sub provincial jail in Baybay City. Also killed there was inmate Raul Yap.

“Remember, he is regional trial court judge based in Basey, Northern Samar. There are RTC judges in Leyte and so I’m wondering and that is why I will ask the CIDG (today) why they got a warrant to that judge. While that place is just near, that’s another province,” Lacson told reporters.

READ: High court joins probe of mayor’s slay

Another question he said he will ask was whether search warrants for two other inmates, including an alleged associate of Espinosa, were also issued and whether it was done by the same judge.

Both these inmates – Edgar Allan Alvarez and Fernando Balagbis ended up dead like Espinosa by police teams raiding their cells.

Last Aug.11, Alvarez, a suspected drug lord and whom Lacson said was a drug supplier of Espinosa’s son Kerwin, was shot dead by a police team raiding his cell for allegedly selling drugs inside the Leyte penitentiary. He allegedly threw a grenade at the team but it did not explode.

On the other hand, Balagbis, a suspected drug pusher, was killed in an anti-drug operation conducted last Oct. 29 in Baybay provincial jail. Balagbis allegedly fired at the raiding police team. CDG