WHAT WENT BEFORE: Who is Peter Lim?

On July 7, 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte identified in public the biggest drug dealers in the country. Among them was Peter Lim, alias Jaguar, a businessman from Cebu.

Mr. Duterte threatened to kill him along with other senior government officials believed to be involved in the narcotics trade.

Days later, at the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency office in Davao City, Lim met with Mr. Duterte as he had feared for his life and denied his involvement in the illegal drug trade in the Visayas.

Though there were many Peter Lims in the Philippines, the Peter Lim who met with the President was earlier investigated by the House of Representatives when it looked into the illegal drug trade in 2006.

Two former employees of Lim were killed several years after testifying against the businessman during the congressional inquiry into illegal drugs.

In a Senate hearing on Dec. 5, 2016, confessed drugs distributor Kerwin Espinosa confirmed that Lim was one of his drug suppliers. Lim said in an interview with the Inquirer on the same day that he did not know Espinosa.

In July 2017, Supt. Royina Garma, of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Central Visayas, said background and financial investigations of Lim had been requested by higher authorities.

In August 2017, the CIDG filed a case against Lim, Espinosa and six others for alleged conspiracy to commit “sale, trading, administration, dispensation, delivery, distribution and transportation of dangerous drugs and/or controlled precursors and essential chemicals.”

The complaint, filed by Supt. Richard Verceles of the CIDG, prompted Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II to issue an immigration lookout bulletin order against Lim, et al.

The Lims own Hilton Heavy Equipment and other businesses in Cebu. —Inuquirer Research

Source: Inquirer Archives