Rolando Espinosa's ‘affidavit'
WHAT I like about Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Ronald dela Rosa is his seeming candor. No, I am not referring to his teary-eyed reaction to a point about police credibility raised by Sen. Miguel “Migz” Zubiri of Bukidnon during the resumption of the Senate hearing on the killing of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa yesterday. Rather, I am referring to his answer to Sen. Panfilo Lacson's question meant to test the believability of the testimony of Espinosa's son Kerwin.
Kerwin was hauled to the Senate hearing yesterday only a few days after he was brought back to the country from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates where he was arrested. When the matter of the affidavit “signed” by his father before he was killed inside a jail in Baybay City in Leyte was raised during the hearing, Kerwin dismissed its contents saying that the Albuera mayor had no knowledge of his operation and was therefore not competent to say anything about it.
Lacson later turned to dela Rosa, to whom the older Espinosa surrendered after he was named in a list of personalities involved in the illegal drugs trade. What did he tell the PNP chief at that time? Dela Rosa essentially confirmed what Kerwin asserted: that while his father knew of his activities, he was not part of the operation and was powerless to stop him. I can say this exchange gave credibility to this portion of Kerwin's testimony yesterday.
Which brings us to Rolando's affidavit. If Kerwin is to be believed, then the content of that affidavit was dubious, making questionable the integrity of whoever prepared it. Which reminds me of the claim of a relative that the Albuera mayor was not the one who prepared the affidavit. Instead, he was merely made to sign it. The relative later took back that claim, though.
No wonder this was one of the points zeroed in by Sen. Franklin Drilon in yesterday's hearing. The Albuera mayor was not assisted in the preparation of the supposed affidavit by a counsel of his choice. Instead, Albuera Police Chief Jovie Espenido claimed he turned to a provincial prosecutor in Leyte who supposedly provided Rolando with two lawyers, something that even Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre described as not just unusual but illegal.
The older Espinosa's affidavit can no longer be used in court because he is dead. But that should not take anything from the fact that it was made up, or a work of fiction. The content of the affidavit may be partly based on facts but it still is generally fiction because, as Kerwin said, his father does not have knowledge of the details of his operation.
Note that it is this “affidavit” that linked actor and Ormoc City Mayor Richard Gomez to the illegal drugs trade. In the hearing, Kerwin categorically denied any link with the actor/mayor.
This is why I am suspicious of the testimonies of the “witnesses” that have surfaced recently in the investigations into the illegal drugs trade, especially because most of them are either arrested personalities or convicted prisoners. With Kerwin's testimony in the Senate hearing, that suspicion has been boosted. If you track down all the testimonies that have come out of the media so far, you will find the information as either conflicting or muddled.
Does this mean CIDG 8 killed somebody who may not be what he was painted to be?
By the way, after Kerwin, it would be the turn of Sen. Leila de Lima's former driver and lover Ronnie Dayan to appear before the congressional probes. While he is prepared to link the senator to the illegal drugs trade, he denied in a media interview knowing all those high-profile inmates at the New Bilibid Prisons who earlie identified him as de Lima's bagman. Interesting.