In November 2016, Rolando Espinosa, at the time the mayor of Albuera town in Leyte, was shot dead in a police operation at the sub-provincial jail in Baybay City, where he was detained on drug trafficking charges. Before his death, he had implicated his son Kerwin together with several other individuals in the illegal drug trade.
Kerwin went into hiding abroad, but was arrested by police in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, based on an alert from the Philippine government and Interpol. Back in Manila, Kerwin initially denied his slain father’s claims, but later told the Senate during an investigation that he earned P50 million yearly from drug trafficking and paid P20 million in protection money.
The Department of Justice, citing weak evidence, initially dismissed the charges against Espinosa, his alleged cohort Peter Lim who was said to be a campaign donor of President Duterte, and 20 other persons. But the charges were restored after Duterte reportedly fulminated against the move of the DOJ.
Before 2021 ended, however, Espinosa scored another legal victory. In a decision dated Dec. 17, Judge Gina Bibat-Palamos of the Makati City Regional Trial Court Branch 64 granted the petition of Espinosa and his co-accused Lovely Impal, Peter Co and Marcelo Adorco to dismiss the case without further prolonging the trial, for insufficiency of evidence.
In her ruling, Bibot-Palamos noted that the case hinged mainly on the testimony of Adorco, which he recanted in August 2020. She added that the police failed to establish conspiracy in drug trafficking, and committed lapses in getting Adorco’s testimony, rendering it inadmissible.
Was the case truly weak, and why did this happen? Kerwin Espinosa and his father were prime targets of the administration’s war on drugs. Surely police and prosecutors understood the need to build an airtight case against him and his co-accused. Authorities are reportedly planning an appeal and mapping out their next legal move. They can’t afford to make it as sloppy as the one that has been dismissed.