Press Release
December 31, 2021

Dispatch from Crame No. 1,196:
Sen. Leila M. de Lima on the dismissal of Kerwin Espinosa's drug case

I really do not know the merits or the lack thereof of the drug cases against Kerwin Espinosa, Peter Co, et. al. I am in no position to judge their guilt or innocence in the recently dismissed case.

What I know is that the DOJ under then SOJ Aguirre had to use such characters as Kerwin Espinosa to falsely implicate me in the drug trade. That was all they cared for and what mattered to them. Kailangan nilang gumamit ng mga yan para idamay ako. It didn't matter to them that the charges against them would stick as long as there's something they could use in their demolition job against me.

I can understand the frustration of the current SOJ when he remarked that "sooner or later the long arm of the law will catch up with these people and they will answer for their crimes."

I fully concur. But Aguirrre's DOJ should have displayed the same vigor exhibited in running after me in pursuing these cases vs. Espinosa, et. al. With their misplaced zeal and wrongful prosecution of an innocent target, rule of law and justice suffer. An innocent suffers while the real guilty malefactors benefit therefrom.

It will serve the DOJ well to remember to flex the long arm of the law more often against the real criminals, rather than the strong hand of the state against the political opposition. The moment it stops wasting its energy on my selective prosecution, maybe then it will start getting convictions against the real drug lords.

(Access the handwritten version, here: https://issuu.com/senatorleilam.delima/docs/dispatch_1196)

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