Warrant served but still no trace of Peter Lim

CEBU CITY—Police served the arrest warrant against Peter Lim on his two listed addresses in this city on Monday afternoon but they failed to find the businessman linked to illegal drug trading.

One team went to Lim’s old house at Barangay Kasambagan but a maid claimed that she had not seen the businessman in the 10 years that she had been working there.

Chief Insp. Dindo Juanito Alaras, Mabolo police station chief, said only Lim’s mother lived in the house.

Another team went to a house at Barangay Banilad but a caretaker claimed that he had not seen his employer since last year.

Intel reports

Senior Supt. Royina Garma, Cebu City police director, said intelligence reports showed that Lim had already left the city.

The police, she said, had to serve the arrest warrant issued by the Makati City Regional Trial Court (RTC) on Aug. 16 so they could formally inform the court that Lim could no longer be found and to pave the way for the issuance of an alias warrant.

According to Garma, an alias arrest warrant has no expiration and can be served anywhere in the Philippines.

Judge Gina Bibat-Palamos of the Makati City RTC Branch 65 issued the warrant after the Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted the Cebu-based businessman for violating Republic Act No. 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, particularly for “selling, trading, administration, dispensation, delivery, distribution and transportation of any dangerous drug.”

The DOJ used as a basis the testimony of confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa before the Senate where Lim was identified as one of his suppliers.

President Duterte publicly called out Lim in 2016, alleging that he was one of the biggest drug dealers in the country.