Cops eclipse De Lima in Kerwin Espinosa’s Senate testimony

ALLEGED VISAYAN drug lord Rolando “Kerwin” E. Espinosa, Jr. named several police officers, including at least two generals, who he said were recipients of “SOP” or bribes to turn a blind eye to his illegal trade.

Among these, he said, is now Daanbantayan, Cebu Mayor Vicente Loot, a retired police general who used to be deputy director for Region 8, and Chief Inspector Leo Laraga, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group officer who admitted to shooting dead Espinosa’s father, the late Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando, Sr. early this month in what the CIDG Region 8 claims was a shootout inside his cell in the Baybay City sub-provincial jail.

Mr. Loot was one of the five police generals publicly named by President Rodrigo R. Duterte as alleged drug protectors soon after he assumed office.

Appearing before Wednesday’s hearing of the Senate committees on public order and illegal drugs and on justice and human rights, which are conducting a probe into the death of the late Albuera mayor, Espinosa said he began paying off policemen in Region 8 after he resumed dealing drugs in 2011, two years after he was released from the National Bilibid Prison on an earlier drug conviction.

Before beginning his testimony, Espinosa sought legislative immunity. Public order committee chairman Senator Panfilo M. Lacson, on the motion of Majority Leader Vicente C. Sotto III, said the panel would seek the approval of Senate President Aquilino Martin L. Pimentel III.

Mr. Laraga, said Espinosa, was the one who collected the P120,000 monthly he gave to Mr. Loot, who was deputy director for administration of Police Regional Office 8 from late 2010 to December 2012, when he was appointed director of the Training Service in Camp Crame.

However, Mr. Espinosa said, only P100,000 of this was for Mr. Loot. The balance went to Mr. Laraga.

In 2015, Mr. Espinosa also claimed he paid off a “General Dolina,” then Region 8 police director, P6 million in three tranches in February 2015, first a check for P3 million and then checks for P2 million and P1 million in the succeeding two weeks. The payoff to Dolina was allegedly facilitated by Victor Espina.

Early into his testimony, after he had first mentioned the name Dolina, Mr. Lacson asked Mr. Espinosa for the first name of the general because there are two who share the family name, one of them named “Greg.”

Although Mr. Espinosa said he could not recall the first name, news reports from the period show the Region 8 police director in 2015 was Chief Superintendent Asher Dolina.

He also named a number of Ormoc City police officers who received payoffs from him, including Senior Inspector Rio Tan and a Major Abordo, who both received P15,000 weekly. Mr. Abordo’s take, however, increased until it reached as much as P80,000 monthly in 2014 when he was assigned to the Regional Special Operations Group. — reports by InterAksyon.com and