DOJ issued subpoena to two dead respondents in Espinosa, Lim case

Kerwin Espinosa (PNA photo by Avito C.Dalan)

The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued subpoena to two dead respondents in the illegal drug trading charges against businessman Peter Lim and self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa.

A hand-written note dated March 26, 2018 in the summons released on March 22 read that the two respondents were killed in separate incidents.

Max Miro, the alleged right-hand man of Espinosa, was killed by policemen when he resisted arrest in Ormoc City on March 10, 2018, while Nelson “Jun” Pepito was gunned down on December 1, 2017 by “two unidentified person riding in a single motorcycle” in Albuera, Leyte. The authorities have yet to determine the suspects in his death.

The two have been summoned to appear before a preliminary investigation into the drug complaint lodged against them on April 12 at the DOJ in Manila.

Other respondents in the high-profile drug case were Peter Co, Marcelo L. Adorco, Lovely Impal, and Ruel Malindagan, among others.

The new panel, handled by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Juan Pedro Navera, Assistant State Prosecutor Anna Noreen Devanadera, and Prosecution Attorney Herbert Calvin Abugan, will conduct new investigations into the criminal charges against those accused.

Justice Vitaliano Aguirre II created the three-member panel after the Justice Department drew flak when it dismissed the charges hurled against the drug lords.

As state prosecutors, Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Aristotle Reyes, one of the DOJ prosecutors, defended that it was their job to evaluate evidence against suspected offenders but looking for proof against them is not part of their duties.

He said that the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) did not attach Espinosa’s confession in a Senate investigation last 2016 where he revealed his illegal drug transactions and dropped the names of his co-respondents.

Reyes added that CIDG’s complaint was weak as they only have one witness.

The Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) on Tuesday recommended that Assistant State Prosecutor Michael John Humarang, Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Rassendell Rex Gingyon, and former Acting Prosecutor-General Jorge Catalan “be preventively suspended by the President pending further investigation of the case.”

The PACC also recommended that Reyes should be subjected to lifestyle check by the Supreme Court (SC).

In response to this, Humarang and Reyes said that they are ready to face the allegations against them.

“We’re just doing our sworn duty and we are ready to face the allegations against us,” Humarang and Reyes said in a statement, maintaining that they followed the law and the rules when they did the preliminary investigation on Lim, Espinosa, and their co-respondents.