DOJ reverses earlier ruling, finds cause to charge Kerwin Espinosa, Peter Co

A Department of Justice (DOJ) panel has found probable cause to press charges against self-confessed drug distributor Kerwin Espinosa and convicted drug lord Peter Co, among others, reversing an earlier resolution that cleared them of criminal liabilities.

A press statement from the DOJ issued Thursday said the new prosecution panel that revived the previously dismissed drug complaint found probable cause against the respondents for violation of Section 26 (b) in relation to Section 5, Article II of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

This, after the panel "found sufficient the positive allegations of Marcelo Adorco, identifying Espinosa, Co, [Lovely] Impal and [Ruel] Malindagan as his cohorts to charge them with conspiracy to commit illegal drug trade," the statement said.

The case against them, which stemmed from a complaint by the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, will be filed with the Regional Trial Court of Makati City on Friday.

Peter Lim, a Cebu-based businessman, was not included in the indictment as his case remains pending after his motion for a separate preliminary investigation was granted by the DOJ panel.

Meanwhile, the prosecution panel dismissed the charges against three respondents, namely Max Miro, Nestor "Jun" Pepito, and Rowen Reyes Secretaria, on account of their "recent deaths."

The fresh resolution came almost seven months to the day after another panel of prosecutors dismissed the same complaint for insufficiency of evidence.

Then-Justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, who resigned amid the controversy that followed the publication of the dismissal, ordered a "wide open review" of the complaint that allowed the parties to submit the necessary evidence.

He assigned it to a new panel composed of Senior Assistant State Prosecutors Juan Pedro Navera and Anna Noreen Devanadera, and Prosecution Attorney Herbert Calvin Abugan, who decided that according to Republic Act No. 9165, conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading is a distinct offense from drug trading.

The panel "clarified that the agreement to trade in drugs is the gravamen" — the most serious part of an accusation — "of such an offense."

They said the drugs themselves as the corpus delicti — or concrete evidence — of drug trading is "not necessary" under Section 26 (b) of the said law.

This provision refers to the conspiracy to commit the sale, trading, administration, dispensation, delivery, distribution and transportation of any dangerous drug and/or controlled precursor and essential chemical.

The statement likewise asserted that this was a conclusion supported by the Supreme Court decision on detained Senator Leila de Lima's plea to nullify her arrest over drug charges.

The panel also "relied on" Espinosa's Senate confession of his drug trading history, the transcripts of which were submitted to the panel by the government, the statement said.

Navera, in an interview with reporters, addressed the difference in the findings of the two prosecution panels.

"It's all a matter of appreciating the evidence presented before us. As the prosecutor general explained, there were pieces of evidence before that were not presented which were presented before our panel so this actually changes the equation."

He said his panel's findings on the complaint were based on the "prevailing doctrine" on the offense of conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading, the confessions of the respondents and the "interlocking" ones of the "other conspirators," as well as the elements of the law's Section 26 (b). —KBK/RSJ, GMA News