Drilon sees ‘conspiracy’ in downgrade of raps vs. cops in Espinosa slay

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Wednesday said there was a possible “conspiracy” in the downgrading of charges against the cops involved in the death of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa.

In a television interview, Drilon recalled that Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II himself previously told the Senate public order committee that the death of Espinosa was a case of “premeditated killing.”

“A premeditated killing is murder. From the mouth of Sec. Aguirre, he said there was a premeditated killing or murder. So why did he downgrade?” Drilon said.

He said Aguirre was “ill motivated” on the basis of his previous statements, and the recent developments on the case.

“It is very clear that whatever motivated Sec. Aguirre, the motivation was wrong. He was ill motivated by this. In fact, on the basis of what we’ve seen, there could even be malice. He admitted it was premeditated and suddenly, five months or six months after he turned around and directed the prosecutor to downgrade,” Drilon pointed out.

Drilon also questioned why the judge of the Baybay City Regional Trial Court Branch 14 immediately granted the downgrading of charges from murder to homicide against the cops led by Superintendent Marvin Marcos.

“The judge should have allowed the case to proceed on the basis of the murder information filed. If the evidence that it is merely homicide, then the accused in this particular case can be convicted of homicide. The judge gravely abused his discretion here,” Drilon said.

“I don’t want to say there was collusion, but these circumstances would raise doubts in my mind. As a former Justice secretary, indeed something is fishy here. There is a conspiracy to go around the rule of law,” he added.

‘Speculation’

Reached for his comment, Aguirre dismissed Drilon’s statement as pure “speculation.”

“They must prove it,” Aguirre said in a phone interview with reporters.

He also maintained that President Rodrigo Duterte had no hand in the downgrading of criminal charges.

“Walang impluwensya si President Duterte d’yan. Palagi kong inuulit ulit dito, kailanman, tungkol sa business ng DOJ, hindi tumatawag o hindi ako kinakausap ni President Duterte from the beginning of my appointment up to now,” Aguirre said.

Grave abuse of discretion

Meanwhile, Drilon also urged the Supreme Court (SC) to look into the possible grave abuse of discretion on the part of the judge for being “incompetent” or “in collusion.”

Drilon further said that the downgrading of raps, which had allowed Marcos and his co-accused to walk out of detention on bail, “encourages impunity.”

Espinosa and another inmate, Raul Yap, died after allegedly putting up a fight against Marcos and his men, as they were serving search warrants inside the Leyte Sub-Provincial Jail in Baybay City on November 5. — with Virgil Lopez/ALG/RSJ, GMA News