PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Friday admitted that he was the one who ordered Philippine National Police chief Roland dela Rosa to reinstate Superintendent Marvin Marcos who had been initially placed in restrictive custody after he was linked to the illegal drug trade.
Speaking to journalists in Davao City, Duterte said he simply ordered Special Assistant to the President Christopher “Bong” Go to call Dela Rosa and he himself ordered the PNP chief to reinstate Marcos so he could pursue an investigation.
"I ordered Bong to call [Dela Rosa]… I told (Dela Rosa), do not remove the guy (Marcos because). I am doing an investigation," Duterte said.
Duterte said he wanted Marcos back in his post as regional chief of the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group because he needed to gather evidence against the police official.
"Because I [can] keep track of his movements. Remove him there [and] everything will be lost. I will lose everything. I cannot follow him," the President said.
Marcos was recently relieved after being linked by Eastern Visayas top druglord Kerwin Espinosa to the illegal drug trade in the region.
"When the investigation was finished, it was then that I learned that [former Eastern Visayas regional police director Chief Superintendent Asher] Dolina was clean [but] Marcos, positive," Duterte said.
Both Marcos and Dolina were implicated as protectors of the illegal drug trade by confessed drug trafficker Kerwin Espinosa, son of slain Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa, who was killed while under detention at a Leyte provincial jail.
Duterte made the revelation the day after Senator Leila de Lima claimed that a source told her that it was Go who asked Dela Rosa to reinstate Marcos.
But Communications Assistant Secretary Ana Marie Banaag later said De Lima was misinforming the public to divert attention from her connection to the illegal drug trade and her illicit affair with her lover-driver Ronnie Dayan.
She said De Lima was resorting to "squid tactics" to create distrust of the Duterte administration.
"These are meant to create division and spread suspicion against the administration," Banaag said.