FILE – Region 8 CIDG Regional Director Marvin Marcos reacts as alleged drug lord turned witness Kerwin Espinosa point that he gave money to him during the Senate probe. Richard A. Reyes/INQUIRER
The downgrading of charges against the policemen involved in the killing of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. bolsters speculation that the order to kill Espinosa in jail “came from the very top,” Senator Leila de Lima said on Tuesday.
“This disturbing development only serves to bolster my suspicion that Marcos, et al. were actually carrying out an order to liquidate Mayor Espinosa, and that such order came from the top, the very top,” De Lima said in a letter she wrote while in detention at Camp Crame.
De Lima joined the senators in condemning the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s decision to reducing to homicide the murder cases filed against Supt. Marvin Marcos and his men at the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) Eastern Visayas.
De Lima was among the personalities Espinosa’s son and alleged drug lord Kerwin tagged as protector of the illegal drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) when she was still the Justice Secretary.
“Could it be that Mayor Espinosa was about to tell the truth or showed signs of revealing which names genuinely belong to Kerwin Espinosa’s list of drug protectors/beneficiaries and those that do not?” De Lima asked in her note.
“Was the father killed as a warning to the son so the latter could fully “cooperate”, as he did, in concocting all those lies about me and my alleged dealings with him (who I absolutely do not know from Adam)?” she added.
“Call it a speculation, or even paranoia, but I’m almost certain that there must be something Mayor Espinosa knew or about to do relative to his son Kerwin’s so-called ‘pink book’ or ‘blue book’ that underlined the mastermind’s decision to kill the Mayor,” De Lima said.
She then maintained that Kerwin’s claim that she was in his blue book containing the names of personalities he transacted with in his drug business.
“Such pink or blue book, whichever, insofar as it includes my name is certainly spurious—as spurious and fabricated as all the other so-called evidence the DOJ purports to have as to my alleged involvement in the drug trade, either within or outside Bilibid,” she said.
The senator also questioned why Kerwin, despite admitting under oath his drug-dealing activities, has not been charged nor investigated.
“I’ve been asking this, and still no answer—How come Kerwin Espinosa, who has admitted under oath his big time drug-dealing activities, is not being charged, or even investigated?” she said.
“Who are the true partners in crime and protectors of Kerwin Espinosa and his drug syndicate? Are they being investigated at all?” De Lima asked.
“I say this again, and more emphatically—The first casualty in this so-called War on Drugs is the TRUTH,” she added./ac