Open letter to Secretary Aguirre

Dear Secretary Aguirre,

Please allow me to vent my frustration with how  we, Filipino taxpayers, are being hoodwinked by the
Department of Justice under your leadership.

In the process, this same department has succeeded in unraveling the makings of a fake war on drugs:

1) On Dec. 20, 2017, the prosecution panel dismissed the charges against Kerwin Espinosa, Peter Lim, Peter Co and others. The reason? Weak evidence.

2) What weak evidence?
Kerwin is a confessed drug dealer. Peter Lim was tagged by Mr. Duterte himself as a drug lord. Peter Co is a convicted drug lord, still serving his sentence. The Senate hearings in 2016 saw Kerwin confessing to his crimes as a drug lord.

3) The DOJ prosecutors claimed they were not furnished the transcripts of the Senate hearings, hence they concluded that the evidence was weak.

You, sir, tried mightily to defend the sloppiness and laziness of your prosecutors saying it was not their job to look for additional evidence! Weren’t the evidence for all to see on TV, in newspapers, social media etc., and your prosecutors were oblivious to all these?

Not one of the prosecutors bothered to ask their colleagues at the DOJ for information to strengthen their case. Police chief Ronald dela Rosa was quoted as saying that the prosecutors refused to work with the Philippine National Police and other agencies within the DOJ.

What is so obvious is that they intentionally ignored all the evidence that they could easily have asked from their DOJ colleagues. The prosecutors were all set to allow the accused to be declared innocent by submitting a weak case which was dependent on only one witness, Marcelo Adorco, whose testimonies
were dismissed as uncollaborated and inconsistent.

We would not have known about these machinations inside the DOJ if the Dec. 20 resolution was not leaked to the press in mid-March. As it turned out, according to former prosecutor and recently promoted RTC Judge Aristotle Reyes, the resolution was forwarded to your office for automatic review as early as Feb. 20.

Now here you come, claiming you either did not know of the existence of the resolution or had not read it. Until the media sprung a surprise on you with the bombshell in mid-March.

To make matters worse, you are now blaming Sen. Leila de Lima for the leak!

But that is not the point Mr. Secretary. The leak is godsent to us but an embarrassment to you. The point is your being a principal party to a travesty of justice which has now been exposed.

Having blamed De Lima, you have just recently tried to wash your hands by declaring that prosecutors are not within your control.

C’mon, Mr. Aguirre. With the enormous power you hold and the unwavering support of your creator and patron, how can you plead that you are powerless?

As a top graduate of San Beda Law School and an experienced practitioner, how can you forget that as justice secretary, you have been sworn to uphold the law, not to provide political cover?

DIONISIO GIL JR., dionisio.gil@gmail.com