Mayor Espinosa, a vital witness, is dead

Surrender or die.” No less than President Rodrigo Duterte gave the late Albuera, Leyte, Mayor Rolando Espinosa, Sr. such choices with the grace period of 24 hours from his announcement. Duterte did not say “Surrender and die.”

True enough, apparently extremely carried away by his fear of dying, Espinosa immediately flew from his very far town in Albuera, Leyte, all the way to Camp Crame in Manila to surrender before PNP Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa. Covered by the media, he also asked his son to surrender to the authorities.

For security purposes, he was allowed to stay at Camp Crame. However, when he went back to Albuera, Leyte, to continually serve as mayor, he asked a favor from the town chief of police to conduct office and reside at the police station. When cases were filed against Espinosa, and as a matter of procedure, he was arrested and turned over to the Leyte sub-provincial jail. Sadly, his life ended in the said government facility.

Worth mentioning is the fact that while the people support the Du30 war on drugs, they reacted negatively to the incident of killing the late mayor.

This is because firstly, people are smart enough that like any other war, there are those who are considered as prisoners of war. They are those who surrendered or wounded who do not have the capacity anymore to fight. If prisoners of war are killed, that is obviously foul, inhuman and condemnable. By analogy, Espinosa was already considered as a prisoner of war.

Secondly, people want to give Espinosa the chance to change his life in line with the “Oplan Tokhang” of President Duterte. As a gesture of sincerity to change his life, the late mayor promised to cooperate with the government in its war against drugs and expressed his willingness to expose their protectors in the drug trade. Truly, he executed an affidavit exposing his protectors which include police generals, officials and politicians.

Thirdly, with his affidavits, he could have been used by the government to run after the more than 200 police officials and politicians who allegedly served as protectors of the drug trade. Therefore, the late mayor was not even just an ordinary prisoner but a vital witness as well. Sadly, his death will in effect turn his affidavits into complete hearsay or mere piece of paper because he could no longer be cross-examined as to their content.

Hence, while there are lot of angles and motives surrounding the death of Espinosa, people cannot be blamed if they suspect that the mayor was purposely killed to silence him. As a saying says, “A dead person tells no tales.”

In fairness to the CIDG-8 and maritime police, they said that they were armed with a search warrant to search the government facility. The judge who issued the warrant is now under investigation by the Supreme Court. They further alleged that the mayor and detainee Raul Yap “opened fire” on the raiding team and so the latter fired back which led to their death.

There are witnesses, however, who narrated different stories by insisting that the mayor and Yap were unarmed and did not have a tool to open fire.

The mayor even shouted to the raiding team not to plant evidence against him.

While the senate investigation on the matter is going on as of this writing, people unavoidably ask series of questions surrounding the circumstances such as: Did Espinosa and Yap possess drugs in their cells? Did they really have fire arms as alleged by CIDG? If Espinosa surrendered to Gen. Bato when at that time he was still free in his movement, did he really open fire on the raiding team when his actions were limited to the four corners of his cell?

If the answers of those nagging questions are yes, and if substantiated by the CCTV footage, I suggest punishing directly the jail warden and jail guards, and immediately exonerating the CIDG. However, if the answer is no, then the reverse should be done — punish the CIDG.

The CCTV videos could very well help in showing the real incident, but there were reports that they were confiscated by the CIDG-8. The CCTV was very much functioning at that time of incident as testified to by Homobono Bardillon, Leyte sub-provincial jail warden. If CCTV footage is not produced, then this is clearly foolishness.

Du30 and General Bato should not tolerate this kind of silliness to happen. This will defeat the purpose of “Tokhang” and will discourage the users, pushers and drug lords to surrender and change their lives. After all, they can be killed anytime even inside the jail like a pig waiting for its time to be butchered.

The death of Espinosa is an insult to the government as it is a showing of its failure to protect a vital witness. This will also run counter to Du30’s choices given to the late mayor, which was “surrender or die” — not “surrender and die.”