Overturned
Due to the widespread criticism of the DOJ's dumping of charges against Peter Lim, Kerwin Espinosa, and others, DOJ Sec. Aguirre has overturned the prosecutor's resolution in the said case. In effect, the said resolution has now been revoked. The case is now open to new evidence which the PNP can present to strengthen the accusations against Lim and Espinosa. Didn't prosecutors say that the evidence presented by the CIDG was weak, and that it wasn't their job to find them?
But Aguirre continues to wash his hands of the whole issue. He blames the public, stating "because some people with ill motives, coupled with politics, people had a bad perception." He blames the backlash, saying the decision was not yet final since the case was still up for review. Is Aguirre saying that the public was the one who forced him to do his job? Then he should first blame President Duterte, who was apparently so disappointed with the dismissal that he punched a wall at the Palace. Unless of course, that incident never happened. If the public did not know of the dismissal, would it still be overturned, or would the dismissal stand? Don't we now have a freedom of information law?
Aguirre also stated that he did not know what his prosecutors were doing. So how can he say that the case was up "for review" if he doesn't even know about it? It seems everyone is to be blamed but himself, he who heads the DOJ today. At present, there has been no reaction from the camp of Peter Lim and Kerwin Espinosa, who celebrated the dismissal of their cases. I await their reaction, and revelation, if any.
Of course, despite widespread calls for Aguirre to resign, he will remain as Secretary of the DOJ. He also calls those asking for his ouster as ignorant. Aguirre even sarcastically states that "Duterte has no whiff of distrust for me", paraphrasing the latter's "whiff of corruption" pledge. Duterte is even leaving up to Aguirre its newly acquired state witness, none other than Janet Lim Napoles, now supposedly the least guilty in the PDAF scam. I'm not surprised, since most of Duterte's critics and members of the opposition and former administration seem to have already been charged by the DOJ. What's a few more? Since he is blaming the public for the backlash that led to his overturning of the resolution, perhaps he should attend the next pro-administration rally and ask those in attendance who they would want the government to go after next, as he has already done before.
The CIDG should now step up and make good use of this development with regards to the cases against Peter Lim, Kerwin Espinosa, and the rest. The CIDG claims that Espinosa's Senate testimony was not submitted or used. I wonder why? The DOJ must show that the "big fish" can actually be caught, tried, and convicted of the crimes that Duterte supposedly hates so much, and not just the thousands, most of them from poor, impoverished families, who have already died in his bloody campaign.
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