The deaths of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa and inmate Raul Yap inside their cell in Baybay Sub-Provincial Jail in Leyte early Saturday morning is a slap on the face of the rule of law. The incident cows our sensibility. No idiot can believe the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) explanation that the mayor was killed inside his cell while fighting back with a gun as he was about to be served a warrant.
Can the PNP prove their narrative that Espinosa and Yap were the ones who first fired their guns? Where did the inmates get their guns? And why serve a warrant in jail at 4 in the morning? Why not coordinate with the sheriff to serve the warrant since they were already detained? Why were the jail guards not present when the warrant was being served?
As confirmed by Eastern Visayas Police Director Chief Supt. Elmer Beltejar, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) Region 8 office that carried out the operation made no effort to coordinate with his office. Now, if this was a deliberate operation by the CIDG meant to kill Espinosa, who were the powerful people behind the killing? Are they politicians, policemen or high-ranking officials who were involved in drug trafficking and who want to protect their own scalp by eliminating Espinosa?
If this involves the possibility of cover-up for certain personalities in the Espinosa father-and-son protection payola as the motive for the killing, it is the PNP’s job to find out. With Espinosa dead, however, will the public ever know who his accomplices are, and where his supplies come from?
How will this double murder in a Leyte jail affect the PNP’s credibility at a time when human-rights groups are questioning police operations involving drug suspects killed under similarly suspicious circumstances? Here’s what smells murder: There are closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in that facility that recorded the incident, but why is the hard drive containing the footage inside the jail missing?
A witness said there was a near shootout when guards at the Baybay jail refused to allow the CIDG agents inside because they supposedly did not have a copy of the search warrant with them. Is this a case of armed intrusion?
Let’s hear from a senator who read the autopsy: “Why were the shots all downwards all through the stomach and through the chest, which means these are marks of somebody who is begging for his life?”
Another solon believes the mayor’s death falls under extrajudicial killing and is a possible cover-up for certain personalities. Is the incident related to the ambush killing of Espinosa’s lawyer in August?
Sen. Richard J. Gordon, head of the Senate Committee on Justice, said this incident “is a dagger in the heart of the criminal justice system, as it appears that even those who are in custody of the law are no longer safe.” He said: “How can we encourage suspects to surrender under the law in this situation? It signals a desperate system—a take-no-prisoners approach.” Has this incident created an atmosphere of intimidation and put everybody in danger as Gordon fears? Will the PNP be able to allay fear among our people that it is capable of protecting the citizens and delivering justice to them under the rule of law? The people are waiting for answers.
1 comment
If anything, what I take from this story is that the drug menace is more than just real. The fact that an important witness was blatantly murdered confirms just how bad the drug syndicate problem is embedded in our society. If we stop now, the drug influence will only grow stronger, deeper, way more worse than what we’re seeing now.