It was a declaration that shocked the country.
The pronouncement made by Lt. Col. Jovie Espenido had said that the Philippine National Police is the biggest crime group in the country has raised more questions on the legitimacy of drug busts and search operations which claimed the lives of many during the previous administration.
Espenido also said that he totaly agrees with Rep. Romeo Acop’s statement, saying that Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who served as the Duterte administration’s first PNP Director General, was the “lord” of the country’s biggest crime group.
It will be recalled that in his testimony before the Quadcomm, an aggrupation of four committees at the House of Representatives, Espenido affirmed his written statement that then PNP Chief Bato Dela Rosa had him assigned to Ozamiz to “eliminate” or “neutralize” the Parojinog drug ring headed by Mayor Reynaldo “Aldong” Parojinog, Jr.
Dela Rosa, according to Espenido, personally handpicked him for the Ozamiz assignment after his successful disbandment of the Kerwin Espinosa drug ring in Albuera, Leyte and that on November 5, 2016, Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa, the father of Kerwin, was gunned down and killed during the implementation of a search warrant inside his cell at the Baybay provincial jail in Leyte, where alleged drug personality Raul Yap was also killed.
During a pre-dawn raid headed by Espenid, Ozamiz Mayor Parojinog was killed together with fifteen others, including his wife. Parojinog’s daughter Nova Princess, Ozamiz vice mayor at the time, was arrested and eventually convicted of drug-related charges arising from the said operation.
Espenido alleges that Dela Rosa, together with former President Duterte, arrived in Ozamiz and congratulated him and his men immediately after the deadly search warrant implementation. Duterte, who was known for constantly baring a list of supposed drug lords and their protectors in government including police personnel, judges and prosecutors, had stated that the Parojinogs were included in the said list.
According to Espenido, he implemented six search warrants issued by a Quezon City trial court after he got morally convinced that he had to implement Dela Rosa’s “direct order” to “neutralize” Parojinog. It was the Criminal Investigation and Investigation Group of the PNP that applied for the search warrants.
Espenido bewailed the repeated reappearance of his name in the drug lists drawn up by police generals, saying this was obviously meanbt to destroy his credibility, so that the complaints he filed against fellow officers would be dismissed.
He also bared suspicion that Dela Rosa caused the dismissal of complaints that he filed against his fellow police officers who were identified by Mayor Espinosa as having mulcted protection money from his drug group.
Notably too, Espenido had testified that police units received rewards after every successful implementation of ‘Oplan Tokhang’ which highlighted the drug war during the past administration.
