DOJ chief apologizes for probing prosecutors

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II yesterday apologized to prosecutors for his order to investigate their members who dismissed the drug charges against Peter Lim and self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa.

Aguirre said that his recent order for the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to probe and conduct a case buildup against Assistant State Prosecutors Michael John Humarang and Aristotle Reyes was improper.

“I apologize to the prosecutors for causing the investigation because extraordinary incidents call for extraordinary measures,” he said during the department’s flagraising ceremony.

Humarang and Reyes conducted preliminary investigation on the Lim

and Espinosa cases and dismissed the charges of sale, administration, dispensation, trading, delivery and transportation of illegal drugs filed by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).

Aguirre said the NBI probe was not meant to castigate the prosecutors, but to give them an opportunity to explain and disprove the insinuations against them.

“We need this to show the higher-ups and the public that we’re not hiding anything here, that we decided on the case in accordance to the rules and our procedures,” he said, referring to the NBI probe.

Aguirre said it was his way of protecting the prosecutors and the DOJ as an institution.

He said several prosecutors have expressed alarm that he might also order them investigated if they issue resolutions that are deemed against government policies.

Aguirre appealed for understanding from prosecutors and DOJ personnel as he had to strike down the resolution clearing Lim and Espinosa.

He said he has to apply the power of his office to automatically review dismissed drug charges.

“There are many sectors who criticize and target us. Even the President was misinformed (on the working of the DOJ),” he said.

“After I recalled the dismissal and created a new panel, the issue should have died down but the attacks persisted,” Aguirre said.

He asked critics to move forward from the issue as the DOJ is reviewing the case through a new panel chaired by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Juan Pedro Navera, a veteran prosecutor who specializes in drug cases.

“Because of this continuing outrage of the ignorant, I recalled the dismissal the drugs cases against Kerwin and company and created a new panel to continue the investigation of this case,” Aguirre said.

This development, he explained, would allow the CIDG to submit additional pieces of evidence to bolster their case against the respondents, including the confession by Espinosa that was not presented during preliminary investigation.

The DOJ directed the NBI to determine if the two prosecutors “committed misfeasance, malfeasance or non-feasance or other violations of law in the dismissal of complaint.”

In the controversial resolution, the prosecutors junked the drug charges against Lim, Espinosa, convicted drug lord Peter Co, Marcelo Adorco, Max Miro, Lovely Impal, Ruel Malindagan, Jun Pepito and several others known only by their aliases.

The prosecutors said the police relied on the testimony of Adorco, which was inconsistent based on his three affidavits. They said the police failed to submit additional evidence to corroborate or support the claims of Adorco.

Aguirre earlier said the dismissal of the case should be a wakeup call for police officers to submit complete evidence before filing a complaint with the prosecutors.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said the 3,000 barangays previously cleared of illegal drugs have been reverted back to drug-affected status.

PDEA director general Aaron Aquino said a revalidation on barangay drug-clearing operations showed that more than half of the 5,000 cleared barangays are again affected by illegal drugs.

Aquino said this is a “major problem” for the administration’s campaign to establish a drug-free Philippines by 2022 or before Duterte steps down from office.

He said this could be a setback as the administration originally wanted to clear 7,000 barangays, or an average of 617 per month, this year.

Aquino said they need to regain the 3,000 barangays.

The 7,000 barangays targeted for clearance were set on the baseline on the 24,000 drug-affected barangays, or 52 percent of the total number of villages in the country, as of December 2017.

Drug affectation ranges from slightly affected to seriously affected, depending on the illegal drug activities in the barangay.