“Do you hear me? your next assignment is Iloilo. Thank you.”
With the above words, President Rodrigo Duterte formalized the much ballyhooed posting of Ozamiz City chief of police, Chief Supt. Joven Espenido, to a new assignment: Iloilo City.
Iloilo had been once regarded as a “most shabulized” city, in allusion to its alleged reputation as a nest of drug dealers in Western Visayas.
Espenido’s posting to Iloilo is seen as ominous because of his track record of making pitiless short shrift of drug-infestation in places like Ozamiz and Albuera, Leyte.
The respective mayors of Albuera and Ozamiz met their deaths during Espenido’s watch in their home turfs.
The detained mayor Rolando Espinosa of Albuera died inside his jail cell in the wake of a search operation conducted by personnel of the Philippine National Police (PNP) regional Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, allegedly because he had resisted and opened fire on the law enforcers.
The mayor of Ozamiz City, on the other hand, Reynaldo Parojinog, including his wife and several others, died after allegedly putting up armed resistance against a team of policemen who had arrived at his residence to serve a search warrant.
In a ceremony awarding Espenido the Magalong Medal, Order of Lapu Lapu, President Duterte announced that the controversial police officer’s next assignment would be Iloilo City, as he had himself requested.
The Mayor of Iloilo, Jed Patrick Mabilog, had been in the list of alleged narco-politicians compiled for President Duterte.
A cousin of Senator Franklin Drilon, Mabilog welcomed the Espenido reassignment, saying this would boost the local campaign against illegal drugs in his city.
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