De Lima to Kerwin: ‘Cooperation’ won’t spare you your life

Senator Leila de Lima. SCREENGRAB FROM INQUIRER VIDEO/NOY MORCOSO

Sen. Leila de Lima on Sunday said she would not be surprised if the testimony of alleged drug lord Kerwin Espinosa this week in the Senate would be aimed at tarnishing her reputation.

In her unsolicited advice to the son of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr., De Lima warned Kerwin that he may also end up like his father.

“This is my advice to Kerwin. Don’t ever think that your ‘cooperation’ will spare you your life. Sooner or later this government is going to make sure you end up like your father. I make the same prediction for Jaybee Sebastian,” De Lima said in a statement.

“I would not like to preempt what Kerwin will testify on, but I will also not deny that given everything that the government has thrown at me, it won’t be farfetched that he will just be another of the witnesses to be brought against me in their effort to destroy me,” she added.

Espinosa returned to the country under heavy guard last Friday from the United Arab Emirates, where he and his family fled to escape the Duterte administration’s war on drugs. Kerwin was arrested in Abu Dhabi last Oct. 17.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chair of the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs, earlier said he was hoping that Kerwin’s testimony would shed light on the real motive behind his father’s death. The older Espinosa and another inmate were killed in a predawn raid by the Criminal Investigation and Detection (CIDG) in Eastern Samar earlier this month.

READ: Senators hope Espinosa sheds light on pa’s killing

Lacson said “jueteng” whistleblower Sandra Cam told him Espinosa confirmed the names of several people allegedly found in his father’s “blue book.”

READ: Kerwin has ‘validated’ names in his blue book — Lacson

De Lima said she will be listening to Espinosa’s testimony, but will let the people to judge his credibility “given the circumstances of the moment where drug lords/drug personalities left and right are being stabbed or killed whether they cooperate with the government or not.”

“As for the greatest mystery this government is trying to uncover, all this parade of witnesses has not proven a single thing, except its own deadly partnership with criminals and drug lords against me. It hasn’t shown a single evidence of where the money is. Show us the money. I assure you there is none,” the lady senator said.

“No amount of browbeating the AMLC (Anti-Money Laundering Council) can make me a billionaire in its records overnight. In the meantime, maybe we should look at whose bank accounts are getting fatter as this great distraction of the stoning of De Lima is being performed to the delight of some of the public,” she added.

De Lima is being accused of coddling drug lords and benefiting from drug money at the New Bilibid Prison during her stint as secretary of the Department of Justice. RAM

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