(Eagle News) — Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre said there was no basis for the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission’s recommendation to suspend the prosecutors who dismissed the drug complaint against Kerwin Espinosa and others.
According to Aguirre, “(the PACC does) not know the workings and procedure of the DOJ when conducting preliminary investigation.”
Aguirre issued the statement days after he apologized to Assistant State Prosecutor Michael John Humarang, Acting Prosecutor General Jorge Catalan, Senior Deputy State Prosecutor Rassendell Rex Gingoyon, and former Assistant State Prosecutor and now-Lucena Regional Trial Court judge Aristotle Reyes, whom he had ordered investigated following an uproar over their decision to junk the charges against Espinosa, Peter Lim, Peter Co, Marcelo Adorco, Max Miro, Lovely Impal, Ruel Malindangan, Jun Pepito, Jermy Amang and several others identified only by their aliases.
In junking the charges, the first panel of prosecutors argued that there was a “dearth of evidence” against Espinosa and the others, noting that the testimony of the prosecution’s sole witness was riddled with inconsistencies.
The Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, which acted as the complainant, admitted it did not submit Espinosa’s confession he was a drug distributor in a Senate hearing in 2016, saying he recanted the same during the preliminary investigation.
Aguirre, who has the authority to overturn decisions, has declared the first panel’s decision “moot,” and has formed a second panel of prosecutors that will look into the case.
In a joint statement, Reyes and Humarang also noted that the PACC’s recommendation was “premature,” considering what they said was the fact that the case “has not yet attained finality.”
“At any rate, we’re just doing our sworn duty and we are ready to face the allegations against us,” they said, reiterating their position that they could not “just rely on the inconsistent and contradictory statements of complainant’s lone witness.”
“Additional and credible evidence should have been submitted by the complainant to strengthen its case and justify the filing of criminal charges against the respondents in court,” they said.