Espenido transfer to Iloilo canceled

Chief Insp. Jovie Espenido is interviewed by the media following the commemoration of National Heroes Day at the Libingan ng mga Bayani on Monday, Aug. 28, 2017 in Taguig. AP

Published: 2:00 p.m., Sept. 2, 2017 | Updated: 12:03 a.m., Sept. 3, 2017

ILOILO CITY — A police officer praised by President Rodrigo Duterte for successful, but bloody, operations against top drug suspects, including two mayors, would not be transferred to this city after all.

The assignment of Chief Insp. Jovie Espenido to this city, which Mr. Duterte repeatedly tagged as a top narcotics market, has been canceled, according to the head of the Western Visayas police.

In a press conference, Chief Supt. Cesar Hawthorne Binag, Western Visayas police director, said Espenido, currently Ozamiz City police chief, would remain with the Northern Mindanao regional police.

READ: Wanted Western Visayas drug lord gunned down

The cancellation of Espenido’s deployment to Iloilo City was announced at a press conference by the regional police on the killing of alleged Western Visayas drug lord Richard Prevendido, alias “Buang.”

Binag said he did not know if Prevendido’s killing had anything to do with the cancellation of Espenido’s assignment as head of the Iloilo City police.

READ: Espenido not qualified for Iloilo post, cops say

Prevendido, who carried a P1-million bounty on his head, was gunned down during a police operation on Friday evening.

Binag said the regional police office received an order on Saturday morning from the Philippine National Police headquarters saying that Espenido would remain as Ozamiz City police chief.

The order didn’t offer any explanation, Binag said.

“The higher-ups were the ones who decided although I also met with them. I believe there are other considerations,” Binag said.

The Iloilo City police would instead be headed by Senior Supt. Henry Biñas, former Negros Oriental police director. Biñas’ transfer to Iloilo City was announced in a separate order from the PNP headquarters, according to Binag.

Mr. Duterte earlier this week announced his decision to assign Espenido to Iloilo City after the President again tagged the city as “most shabulized” and its mayor, Jed Patrick Mabilog, as a “drug protector.”

READ: Duterte assigns Espenido to Iloilo City — Visayas’ ‘drug bedrock’

Director General Ronald dela Rosa, PNP chief, subsequently announced that Espenido would head the Iloilo City police.

The assignment, however, generated controversy because Espenido’s rank, chief inspector, was two levels lower than senior superintendent, the rank required for the post of Iloilo City police chief.

Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano, one of the critics of the Duterte administration, said assigning Espenido to Iloilo City only showed a pattern that Mr. Duterte wanted to follow in his war on drugs—kill local officials suspected of involvement in narcotics.

Espenido, according to Alejano, “is being used as a hatchet man of this administration.”

The killings that came during Espenido’s tour of duty in Albuera, Leyte, and Ozamiz City in Misamis Occidental were “not at all coincidences,” Alejano said. —With a report from Vince Nonato /IDL /atm