[Closer Look] Espenido, Duterte’s drug war hammer, bares rot but defends the king
Police Lieutenant Colonel Jovie Espenido hasn’t changed much since he burst into the spotlight in 2016 shortly after then-president Rodrigo Duterte assumed office.
Eight years after Espenido started his star turn in Duterte’s “drug war,” he still peppers discussions about law and order with Bible verses. He still talks about himself in the third person.
His flair for drama, which made him a perfect wingman for Duterte, remains strong. Except he now calls the Philippine National Police (PNP) “the biggest crime group” in the country.
At the August 28 House of Representatives quad committee hearing on drugs, POGOs, corruption, and human rights, Espenido appeared to be a boon to lawmakers seeking links between Duterte’s top men and criminal syndicates.
For those still traumatized from the six years when cops and their shadowy alter egos made urban alleys run red, Espenido’s claim sounds like vindication.
We should resist the temptation to jump up and down.
For one, many of the incumbent lawmakers now engaged in the political brawl between the camps of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his predecessor had cheered when Duterte ordered killings. They clapped as he railed against corruption among politicians, law enforcers, and even judges to justify the need for draconian policies.
And then there’s Espenido. Wrapped up in a cloak of righteousness, he talks as one sent to cleanse the world of evil. Yet he also represents the worst problems bedeviling an agency where the lines between law enforcement and criminality have long disappeared.
His current statements may let the enemies of the Marcos government tremble. But Espenido retains his skewed view of law and justice.
Protectors
It is chilling to see a beatific smile as he explains that the colloquial order to act so a problem disappears (mawala) is open code to get results “by all means,” including killing (patayin).
We learn that he refused to follow “Tokhang,” the wholesale roundup of suspected drug users and pushers that forced confessions, or else. He saw them as victims, he now says.
The whole Tokhang exercise was actually groundwork for the PNP kill quotas. Espenido was quiet about this and other shortcuts ordered in the course of six years of mayhem. His reason: a junior officer obeys.
Espenido says he preferred to arrest and track links to the big fish. He speaks now, aghast, that his targets — Kerwin Espinosa, the self-confessed son of slain Albuera mayor Rolando Espinosa, and the police protectors of the Parojinog clan of Ozamiz — were coddled by the top police officer of that time, now-Senator Roland dela Rosa.
We never heard him speak about this during Duterte’s rule.
Espenido is three months short of retirement, and he now shoves the whole fetid mess for the new government to solve.
He implicates Dela Rosa, Senator Bong Go, Duterte’s favorite aide, and another PNP chief, Oscar Albayalde. This is where his claims are most damning, except that half are based on hearsay (he quotes a now-dead mayor).
What sticks could hurt, however.
That drug list Duterte loved to wave was just a tool of coercion. Espenido actually paints inclusion in it as a death sentence, with friends of the government exempted from punitive action.
He claims Dela Rosa and Go tried to dissuade him from going after a local executive on that list.
Albayalde also allegedly refused him access to the Ozamiz vice mayor Nova Parojinog and her brother, Reynaldo Jr., the survivors of the raid that killed the mayor and 14 other persons. Espenido says he wanted to get their help in identifying cops involved in the narcotics trade.
Espenido recalls that his first words to the clan’s leaders was, turn over everything.
Interesting phrase. Turn over.
Probably the reason why the leaders of the Ozamiz clan died while Kerwin Espinosa walked free of drug cases and now reportedly eyes his father’s former post.
Rolando was slain in his cell at the Leyte Sub-Provincial Jail in a suspicious night raid on November 5, 2016, by cops serving a search warrant for illegal possession of firearms. The mayor had surrendered months earlier, claiming Espenido had threatened him if he did not bring in Kerwin.
The death of Rolando swept away any talk of a ledger containing the names of rogue cops. Espenido back then claimed he had seen the ledger. But he kept his silence. He still can’t name names.
Conflict of interest
Espenido had a curious relationship with the slain mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr. He admits receiving sums as “rewards” for the arrests of drug suspects. In at least one round-up, he got P600,000.
The cop is oblivious to conflict of interest. There was little financial aid for operations from the PNP leadership, he says to justify the transactions. (We’ve heard that before with the Armed Forces — units accepting cash and logistics from landowners, developers, and assorted warlords.)
It is strange that Espenido would implicate Dela Rosa and company in drugs but dodge when asked about extrajudicial killings.
Even stranger is his protectiveness towards the Big Boss, who screamed out the orders to kill, kill, kill.
True believer
Espenido’s fondness for Duterte is grounded in three aspects.
First, he was flattered by the former leader’s out-of-public-light defense when he faced allegations of being in the pay of drug lords. The allegations, he says, were punitive action for taking down networks that Duterte’s men wanted to shield or take over. But he languished while Duterte continued backing Dela Rosa and Go.
Second, Espenido was and remains a true believer in brutal payback. He still believes that darn drug list, which he describes as the compilation of wisdom from all intelligence agencies — never mind that the same intelligence bodies often met his idol’s rash claims with glazed eyes.
Three, Espenido’s faith tells him he is a special creature, protected at all times by his God. His stories can lead into very strange byways. He mentions praying to God after then-PNP chief Archie Gamboa accused him of being part of a Malaysian drug syndicate. He translates the March 5, 2020, chopper crash that injured Gamboa and two other generals as the answer to his prayer.
The flipside of number three is this: Espenido’s favorite line is that, if you die, it is the will of God. If He doesn’t will it, you will be kept safe against anyone — even if you’re bad.
He said this in the aftermath of the Parojinog killings.
He reiterated his message when Duterte assigned him to Bacolod City as deputy chief of operations in October 2019, with this benediction: “Go there and you are free to kill everybody. Start killing there.”
The Negros bishops protested. The newly-assigned cop told them to trust in God’s will and pray harder with this bizarre explanation: “Espenido is just an instrument, maybe for arrests or for killing. God cannot come here to do the job Himself.”
That worldview is especially dangerous because Espenido doesn’t even bother about context.
He praises Duterte for heeding his call to strike out the name of then-Bacolod councilor Cano Tan from the drug list. Yet, he seems clueless about that case’s background.
Espenido’s appointment came months after Duterte summarily fired local police chief Francis Ebreo in the middle of a dinner for the scion of the powerful Yanson business clan.
Duterte claimed Ebreo was coddling an alleged drug lord. That was actually Tan, who was in the hospital after being wounded in an ambush, and got a visit from the police chief, the mayor, and assorted officials.
PNP officials in Bacolod, in the region, even in the capital, were bewildered by Duterte’s tirade and his claim.
Tan went into hiding.
Espenido thinks Duterte cleared Tan on his behalf. But I had interviewed Tan, who credited the Yansons for interceding with Duterte, actually inviting him to a house party so he could talk with the then-president. It was a long process, complete with emotional letters and various intercessions, and only resolved in 2021, long after Espenido was assigned elsewhere.
Espenido claims there were no EJKs in Bacolod when he was around. Probably not during an official police operation.
But on December 15, 2019 — almost to the day of the councilor’s 2018 ambush — his 70-year-old brother, Robert “Kaishek” Tan died after motorcycle-riding men ambushed him in broad daylight, shooting him at least five times in the head.
The councilor gushed over the clearance. He never got to seek justice for his brother, “because it would just muddle my case.”
That Espenido willfully plays blind to Duterte while raking fellow cops and other fat cats shows huge holes in his strange moral compass. – Rappler.com