West Visayas police clear Espenido of drug links

MANILA, Philippines — The Western Visayas police has cleared Lt. Col. Jovie Espenido of involvement in the illegal drug trade after the controversial police officer was included in President Duterte’s narco list.

Brig. Gen. Ren Pablico Pamuspusan, Western Visayas police director, said yesterday that Espenido was cleared based on results of the validation of their adjudication board on reports linking the police official to illegal drugs.

“As far as Police Regional Office 6 is concerned, there is no reliable information of confirmatory report that would say Espenido is involved in illegal drugs,” Pamuspusan said.

However, he clarified their findings only cover their region where Espenido was recently relieved as deputy chief for operations of the Bacolod City Police Office.

Espenido, one of Duterte’s enforcers in the war on drugs, also served as police chief of Albuera, Leyte and Ozamiz City.

He is one of 356 police officers included in the Chief Executive’s narco list.

Espenido welcomed the results of the probe clearing him of involvement in prohibited narcotics.

Pamuspusan said they will submit their findings to the national adjudication board at Camp Crame in Quezon City which is conducting its own probe.

Meanwhile, Espenido has submitted his explanation on the media blitz he made, which had irked Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Archie Francisco Gamboa.

Gamboa ordered an internal probe on Espenido’s actions, which he conducted days after Interior Secretary Eduardo Año confirmed that his name was on the administration’s drugs list.

“I made him explain his actuation regarding his media appearances and I told him we could not just ignore the instruction of chief PNP,” he said.

Last month, Espenido, who used to head the Bacolod City Drug Enforcement Unit (CDEU), said Bacolod could be considered a “shabulized area.”

But it appeared that Espenido might have spilled a rather sensitive statement without the go signal from the PRO-6 hierarchy.

A day after Espenido made the statement, PRO-6 spokesperson Lt. Col. Joem Malong was asked about Bacolod City’s new tag.

Malong just said this was Espenido’s personal opinion.

“As far as we’re concerned, the term shabulized is not on our parameters,” she said. – With Jennifer Rendon