Duterte defends police: 'I believe in their version'

President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday said he believed the version of events presented by the police amid a Senate investigation into the killing of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa.

"Let me state my case as the chief executive of the executive branch: I believe in the version of the police," Duterte said on Friday in a news conference in Davao City shortly after arriving from his two-day visit to Malaysia.

Senators on Thursday castigated members of the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, noting that the death of Espinosa, a suspected big-time drug lord in the Visayas region, inside a prison cell seemed to be a case of summary execution.

Senator Panfilo Lacson, a former PNP chief, noted several loopholes in the testimonies of the policemen at Thursday's probe that seemed to reinforce the theory that Espinosa's death was an extrajudicial killing.

But Duterte dared the Senate to prove their case in court.

"If they have evidence to prove otherwise, then a case must be filed," he said.

Duterte has repeatedly said he was willing to protect cops from suit as long as the cases filed against them came while they were doing their duty, something which he reiterated in the early morning briefing.

"Natural utos ko yun eh. The fight against drugs is mine," he said.

"If anybody should go to prison, I should be the one. I assume full legal responsibility. If I rot in prison so be it," he added. --JST, GMA News