Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. —ROBERT DEJON
TACLOBAN CITY—A radio reporter from this city is willing to testify in the Senate investigation of the killing of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. in what police claim was a shootout with officers in a jail in Leyte province on Nov. 5.
“I will tell them only what I know. I was there to cover the operation and nothing else,” Eulogio Caorte, a reporter for dyBR, told the Inquirer on Thursday night.
The Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs headed by Sen. Panfilo Lacson opened an inquiry into the killing of Espinosa on Thursday.
Chief Insp. Leo Laraga, leader of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Eastern Visayas (CIDG-8) team that raided Espinosa’s cell, allegedly to search it for weapons and drugs, told the committee that a radio reporter was there and could testify that there was nothing irregular about the police operation.
Shootout
Laraga maintained that he and his men were forced to shoot back when Espinosa and another inmate, Raul Yap, opened fire on them.
Caorte said CIDG-8 invited him to cover the operation, but he was not told who were the subjects of the search warrants that were to be served.
He said it was only later that he learned the subjects were Espinosa and Yap.
Caorte said that when the team arrived at the jail, Laraga told him not to enter the building where the cells were located.
“I was inside the compound, but not inside the building,” he said.
No guns
Minutes later, he said he heard gunfire inside the building, followed by a commotion and more gunfire.
When crime scene investigators arrived to process the cell, he said he was able to get near the body of Espinosa but did not see any firearms there.
The Leyte provincial police investigated the incident and found that Espinosa and Yap were not armed.
After hearing testimony from the officers involved on Thursday, Lacson said the killing of Espinosa was “premeditated.”