Espenido tapped as Virac cop chief

Persistent reports of a resurgence of illegal drugs operations in Catanduanes may have triggered the reassignment of Chief Inspector Jovie Espenido as chief of police of Virac, the town capital of the Bicol island province.

Chief Superintendent Abner Escobal, director of the Bicol Region police, said Virac has a history of serious illegal drugs operations with the discovery of a shabu laboratory that could produce 300 kilos of illegal drugs a day in 2016.

“There were reports about illegal drugs operations and he (Espenido) is welcome here,” Escobal said.

“His presence here in Police Regional Office 5 is a boost to our anti-illegal drugs campaign,” he added.

In an order dated October 11, Espenido was relieved as police director of the Ozamiz City and was reassigned to the Bicol regional police, specifically in Catanduanes.

Escobal said Espenido will be the chief of police of Virac.

Espenido became one of the popular poster boys of the anti-drugs war of President Duterte over his aggressive campaign against illegal drugs, including figuring in a head-on clash with local officials involved in illegal drugs.

When he was the chief of police of Albuera town in Leyte, he was instrumental in the busting of Mayor Rolando Espinosa and the latter’s subsequent cooperation in the investigation of illegal drugs in Eastern Visayas.

The mayor is the father of Kerwin Espinosa, a suspected drug lord operating in Eastern Visayas and was among those charged along with two more drug lords.

Mayor Espinosa was killed later inside a detention facility in Leyte by local Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).

Espenido was then reassigned to Ozamiz City and several months later, the city mayor, his wife, and 13 others were killed in separate raids led by Espenido last year.

President Duterte had earlier tagged the Parojinog political clan in Ozamiz City and Misamis Occidental as involved in the illegal drugs trade.

Virac drug case In November, 2016, police dismantled a shabu laboratory in Barangay Palta Small in Virac town. Seized were various equipment and more than 300 kilos of main ingredients of shabu.

At the course of the probe, several names of relatives of political clans from Catanduanes, Albay, and Camarines Sur cropped up as involved in the actual operation of the shabu laboratory and the disposal of finished products.

A ranking official of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and his kin were also implicated.

All those implicated were already charged.

Promotion

But the reassignment of Espenido to Catanduanes is more of a career move than another task of busting drug syndicate in the island province in Bicol.

Director General Oscar Albayalde, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), said that Espenido is set to be promoted to the next rank, superintendent or equivalent to lieutenant colonel in the military.