ESPINOSA RESIDENCE

Police seized P88M worth of shabu inside the house of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. of Leyte. (INQUIRER PHOTO)

Police raid empty house, recover 11 kilos of shabu

Joint police teams from the Regional Public Safety Batallion (RPSB), the Albuera police and the Leyte Provincial Office raided the ancestral house of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. and claimed to have recovered 11 packs of high-grade shabu, components for improvised bombs and improvised clamore bomb inside a cabinet under the kitchen sink.

The house was empty when the policemen conducted the raid about 6 a.m. on Wednesday.

A ranking official of the Eastern Visayas police said on Wednesday that the 11 kilos of shabu worth P88 million that were seized inside the house of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. only showed that he knew of his son’s illegal operation, contrary to his claims he did not.

Senior Supt. Allan Cuevilla, police deputy director for operations of the Philippine National Police in Eastern Visayas, said the items recovered from the mayor’s residence showed that the elder Espinosa not only knew of his son Kerwin Espinosa’s illegal drug operations, but was involved in it, too.

The packs of shabu were placed inside a white plastic bag.

Members of the RPSB helped in the raid of the house of Espinosa at Sitio Tinago, Barangay Benolho, an interior village about 250 meters from the main road.

It was the biggest haul of shabu in Eastern Visayas, where shabu distribution was said to be controlled by the mayor’s son, Kerwin.

Innocence

Mayor Espinosa, in a press statement, maintained his “innocence on my knowledge of the illegal activities of my son.”

He said that even before President Rodrigo Duterte issued a shoot-on-sight order against him and his son at 4 in the afternoon of August 1, he was already in Camp Crame by 10 a.m. the same day.

He said the reason why he went to Camp Crame was “to primarily and personally report to the Chief of the PNP, Police Director General Rogelio dela Rosa, the threats to my life made by PCI (Police Chief Inspector) Juvy Espinido, the Chief of Police of Albuera, Leyte.”

“As a matter of fact, these threats can be verified from his interview with the local media in Ormoc City wherein PCI Espinido said that he will hang my head on the flagpole of the municipality,” his statement read.

He said the police raid by Espinido and member of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in his house yesterday, where operatives allegedly found 11 kilos of shabu are all part of the harassment on him and his family.

He said that as a consequence of the raid, his personal properties inside his residence were looted by some people because the police left his house unlocked and unguarded after they entered the premises.

He appealed to the President and to dela Rosa to order his men to “stop these threats and harassment to my person and to the members of my family” as he likewise assured that he would face the cases filed against him.

“I have no plans of fleeing because I am innocent of all these charges, and I still believe in the justice system that eventually will uphold my innocence,” he said.

Monitoring

Police Regional Director Noli Taliño said they are monitoring a private hospital in Cebu City where the mayor is reportedly confined.

“Wala naman siyang kaso pero kung may kaso na siya at kailangang arestuhin, aarestuhin natin (As of now, no case has been filed against him. But in case there will be one and he needs to be arrested, we will do so),” Taliño said.