You can’t run; you can’t hide. When Dirty Rody wants you “shot on sight,” not even a provincial jail can keep you safe.
Or at least that’s the impression formed from the killing of Albuera town Mayor Rolando Espinosa right inside his cell at the provincial jail in Baybay City early last Saturday. It wasn’t quite a case of “shooting on sight” – Espinosa managed to stay alive for a few more weeks after the presidential order was issued. But he’s been shot dead, and certain individuals tagged as his cohorts are running scared.
The most intriguing aspect in this case is the strong criticism from various sectors, including Sen. Panfilo Lacson who’s no stranger to police “neutralization” of crime suspects. Perhaps after 4,000 drug-related deaths in four months, people have reached their threshold of tolerance for the Pinoy brand of capital punishment. Maybe the killings are starting to hit close to home, and people who are in a position to openly criticize the drug war are seeing friends or acquaintances grieving over slain drug suspects. Or perhaps God is talking to the right people.
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The administration painted Espinosa to the public as a drug dealer – if not directly, then as a protector of his son Kerwin, believed to be the drug kingpin of Albuera. Neutralizing such drug personalities is the closest thing Filipinos can get to swift justice. Restoring capital punishment will be a tough sell in Congress? But the country has something better and quicker. Taking human life has never been so easy.
Pinoys can be spoiled by this brand of swift justice. Even if the judiciary miraculously manages to speed up the wheels of justice and cleanse its ranks of so-called hoodlums in robes, the courts may never be able to match the efficiency and finality of killing crime suspects.
So what if guilt has not yet been established, and cops are acting as accusers, prosecutors, judges and executioners, all rolled into one? In the case of Espinosa, President Duterte seems to have established the mayor’s guilt in the court of public opinion.
For many years now, because of the weak rule of law and inefficient, snail-paced justice system, Pinoys have shown a high tolerance for the killing of crime suspects. The kidnapping spree targeting mostly Tsinoys in the 1990s ended after a string of killings of kidnap gang members. Notable was the Red Scorpion Group, believed to have broken away from a communist death squad. RSG remnants later regrouped but were also neutralized.
When carjackers are killed in a car chase, or when a child rapist is shot dead when he tries (while in handcuffs) to grab the gun of his police escort, the common public reaction is good riddance.
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President Duterte has tapped into this wellspring of public discontent to forge ahead with his unprecedented brutal war on drugs. He has admitted making mistakes in identifying narco politicians or narco cops. But it seems the mistakes have not diminished public support for his iron hand approach to criminality.
I did hear incredulous snickering from some commentators over certain details in the alleged gunfight between Espinosa and the police.
A team from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group was reportedly serving a search warrant on Espinosa for drugs and guns at 4 a.m. when the mayor and another inmate, Raul Yap, allegedly opened fire, prompting the lawmen to fire back. The two inmates were killed.
Give that police team an A for dedication, for working before the crack of dawn to serve a search warrant. Incidentally, do you need a warrant to search the cell of a jailbird suspected of trafficking in guns and drugs?
Espinosa, who lost six of his security personnel in a raid on one of his posh homes last August, must have been harboring a death wish to open fire on a police team in the time of Dirty Rody.
Footage from the CCTV at the jail can show what happened. But the video footage, authorities said, has (conveniently) disappeared.
Espinosa was accused by the administration of protecting Kerwin, currently held by UAE authorities, in the drug trade in Albuera town. Before his demise, Espinosa had tagged Kerwin as the drug dealer in the family. The mayor also reportedly submitted to authorities a list of those involved in the illegal drug trade in his turf.
A man who pins down his own son to save his hide, who indirectly admits tolerating if not protecting the drug trade, and who then rats on everyone does not get much sympathy anywhere in this world.
But we are also hearing voices of concern, even from some Duterte supporters, that ours is a free society where due process is guaranteed by the Constitution and the rule of law is supposed to prevail.
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As we know, Espinosa was the second mayor linked to the drug trade to be killed by police in less than two weeks. Last Oct. 28 at past 4 a.m., Mayor Samsudin Dimaukom of Datu Saudi Ampatuan town in Maguindanao was killed together with nine of his security escorts when they allegedly shot it out with police manning a checkpoint in North Cotabato. Police said they had received a tip that Dimaukom was transporting shabu to his town from Davao, Du30’s home city.
Both Dimaukom and Espinosa had been tagged by Du30 as narco politicians. The President has since decided not to release any new list of public officials involved in drug deals. But he had earlier said the list included thousands of barangay personnel, cops and several other public officials.
No new list has been made public. But in the past weeks, we have seen a large number of barangay chairmen, council members and security personnel as well as cops busted for drugs or killed. Again, a common reaction to the reports (except of course from the victims’ loved ones and friends) is good riddance.
People, it seems, have even bought Du30’s argument for postponing by a year the barangay and youth council elections: with so many village officials involved in the drug trade, he said, the officials would simply use drug money to finance their campaigns and likely win fresh terms. Yesterday a female barangay captain in Sulu was arrested on charges of involvement in the Abu Sayyaf’s kidnapping of foreigners. She won’t get much sympathy either.
The execution of Espinosa in his jail cell may have shaken even certain Du30 diehards. But public acquiescence remains Du30’s most powerful weapon in his vicious war on crime.