THE Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) on Tuesday, March 27, sought President Rodrigo Duterte's permission to investigate the panel of prosecutors and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) for their failure to pursue the drug-related charges against alleged drug lords Kerwin Espinosa and Peter Lim and their cohorts.
"The PACC is recommending, for the approval of the President, that the recommendation be regarded as formal charge against the panel of prosecutors and CIDG [and] investigation be conducted for gross neglect and manifest partiality in the performance of duty that cause undue damage to the government," the commission said.
The commission also sought the suspension of the prosecutors behind the dismissal of the charges against Espinosa, Lim and others.
"We want them to be suspended so they could not tamper with the documents, because we it took us time to get the documents [with regard to the dismissal of cases against Espinosa and Lim," PACC Commissioner Greco Belgica told a press conference.
"So while they are being investigated and under investigation, they can give their reason as to why they did that. But on its face, you can see that probably, there's a mistake. There's a mistake in what they did," he added.
In a 41-page resolution released on March 12, the Task Force on Anti-Illegal Drugs under the DOJ recommended the dismissal of the anti-drug complaint against Espinosa, Lim, and several others for lack of evidence.
The document was issued on December 20, 2017 by assistant state prosecutors Michael John Humarang and Aristotle Reyes, now a trial court judge. It was recommended for approval by Senior Deputy State Prosecutor Rassendell Rex Gingoyon, and approved by acting Prosecutor General Jorge Catalan.
PACC chairman Dante Jimenez, in a statement, said he believed that the decision to drop complaints filed by the CIDG-Major Crimes Investigation Unit against Lim and Espinosa was "fishy."
"Something is fishy. The dismissal of Espinosa (and Lim's) drug case will not be taken sitting down by the PACC," Jimenez said in a statement.
"Our mandate is to assist the Office of the President to investigate corrupt and erring public officials, in relation to the performance of their duties, and this is exactly what we will do," he added.
The PACC said the prosecutor panel violated Republic Act 9165, or Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, "when it failed, if not refused, to set a clarificatory hearing in order to ascertain the truthfulness of the testimonies of the parties and the veracity of submitted documents."
On the part of the CIDG, its failure to submit "relevant and vital" evidence against the two alleged top drug lords constitutes "gross inexcusable negligence, a betrayal on their sworn duty to monitor, investigate, and prosecute crimes of such magnitude and extent as to indicate commission by highly placed professional syndicates," said the anti-corruption commission.
On March 19, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II overruled the dismissal of drug cases against Espinosa and Lim, rendering the case "wide open" to give concerned parties more time to provide additional evidence. (SunStar Philippines)