PHILIPPINE National Police (PNP) Chief Ronald dela Rosa said Tuesday that they have not yet received any information about Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña's links to illegal drug operations as alleged by Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.
“So far ngayon, wala kaming pinang-hahawakan na ano. Iba naman ‘yung pinanghawakan ni SOJ (Secretary of Justice), ‘yung basis naman n’ya doon ‘yung nag-surrender na drug personality (We don't have any evidence yet. Aguirre's basis was the statement of the drug surrenderer),” he said.
Dela Rosa was referring to Reynaldo “Jumbo” Diaz, the cousin of Jeffrey “Jaguar” Diaz, the alleged number 1 drug lord in Central Visayas who was killed in an anti-drug operation in Las Piñas in June 2016.
Reynaldo, the number 2 in the top 10 high-value targets of the Central Visayas police, was arrested in September 2016 while he was in hiding in Sorsogon, Bicol.
He allegedly took over Jeffrey’s drug syndicate in Cebu.
“A certain Jumbo Diaz na remember n’yo? Hinuli pa namin sa may beach resort doon sa Bicol region doon sa Sorsogon banda, hinuli namin only to find out na ‘yun pala ay hawak na ng NBI (National Bureau of Investigation), nag-surrender na sa kanila and ‘yun ang nagbigay ng information. So hindi sa amin naibigay doon sa SOJ so wala kaming hawak ngayon,” said Dela Rosa.
Earlier, Aguirre said Reynaldo named Osmeña in his sworn affidavit as among those receiving payola from Jeffrey’s illegal drug operations.
Reynaldo said Osmeña received from his cousin P2 million for hospitalization expenses in 2013 and another P5 million intended for the 2016 elections.
Aguirre made the revelation after Osmeña threatened to file a disbarment case against him for lawyering the SM Prime Holdings and Banco de Oro against the tax evasion case file against them by the Cebu City Government.
The Justice secretary admitted dipping his hands in the said case but only by ordering its transfer from the Cebu prosecutor’s office to Manila court.
"The conflict between BDO and Mayor Osmeña there in Cebu is very deep, so the respondents requested that the case be transferred because they could hardly expect fairness since the people there will favor the mayor," said Aguirre.
"So what I did was to transfer the case here and assigned it to one of our prosecutors. But when I did that, it was within my power to transfer cases, which I always exercise," he added. (VoxPop Philippines)
