PHILIPPINE National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa vowed Wednesday to go after drug syndicates once a reform program to ride the police force of scalawags is completed.
“We will fight another day,” Dela Rosa said, after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered him to dissolve all anti-drug units in the PNP, following a scandal in which policemen kidnapped and strangled a Korean businessman, Jee Ick Joo, inside police headquarters then extorted P5 million from his wife, who did not know he was dead.
Dela Rosa shortly suspended Oplan Tokhang, the PNP’s much-maligned anti-illegal drugs campaign.
“To the drug lords, this is your day. You may have achieve your victory right now, but I have said this momentary victory on your part,” Dela Rosa said.
The Jee scandal brought to surface another instance when eight policemen robbed and extorted three other Koreans in their temporary residence at the Friendship Plaza in Angeles City in December 2016.
Dela Rosa said President Duterte’s decision to temporarily suspend the fight against illegal drugs was a temporary setback but assured the public that they would eradicate the drug menace once they cleanse their ranks of misfits.
He said weeding out police scalawags and eventually enlisting good men in the organization is a paradigm shift towards attaining victory against peddlers of illegal drugs.
“This a momentary defeat on our part, but we will continue the war later once we retool our troops [and] cleanse our ranks,” Dela Rosa said.
On Tuesday, Dela Rosa urged all policemen to do some soul searching.
At a mass in Camp Crame, Quezon City, the PNP chief said it is important for policemen to have a clean conscience.
“We are embarking on an internal cleansing at the PNP. So I must acknowledge that I myself need internal cleansing. Before we can clean the entire organization, we need to cleanse ourselves first,” Dela Rosa said.
Dela Rosa added that because policemen are too busy in their work they might have forgotten to ask for guidance from God.
UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial and summary killings, Agnes Callamard, called on the government to investigate unlawful acts committed under President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, which was recently suspended.
“A pause in the war on drugs is welcomed,” said Callamard in a Twitter post.
“It must include investigation of all unlawful death, accountability, [and] reparation,” she added.
Callamard was set to visit to the Philippines to look into alleged extrajudicial killings in the country amid the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.
Her planned visit and remarks about drug-related deaths drew tirades from Duterte, who asked her where she got her “garbage” about police vigilantes in the Philippines.
On Wednesday, Negros Oriental Rep. Arnulfo Teves Jr. said President Duterte should be given a free hand to cleanse the ranks of the PNP.
“I don’t think he has completely lost trust in the PNP. But he is definitely realizing that some personalities in the organization are rogue and that these people will be detrimental to the success of his programs,” Teves said.
House Deputy Speaker and Batangas Rep. Raneo Abu said the President’s decision to suspend the war on drugs was a temporary setback.”
“I am hopeful that the recent orders of President Duterte to disband the anti-illegal drugs group would just be the start of the sustained efforts to purge the PNP organization. The President’s war on drugs will not be successful without a credible PNP organization,” he said.
“The latest atrocities committed by the authorities in uniform, particularly within the PNP, reflect the reality that the sense of morality of the group and individuals involved has long been lacking and calloused that need continuing and in-depth reforms.”
Senator Panfilo Lacson, however, expressed apprehension over Dutere’s plan to enlist the military to perform anti-drug law enforcement through the revival of the Philippine Constabulary.
“This would seem to be a long legal process. First, it is clear that the PNP is in accordance with the constitutional mandate, establishment of one police force that should be national in scope and most importantly purely civilian in character,” said Lacson.
“So if we are to establish the PC, there might be a problem in jurisdiction. Before, the Integrated National Police (INP) was local. The PC became PC-INP due to the nationwide coverage of the PC. But now, the PNP under the Constitution and under the PNP Law as amended by RA 8551, is really national in scope. Somwhere there will be overlapping in the issue of jurisdiction,” Lacson said.
Lacson said he has filed a bill that would give the PNP’s Internal Affairs Service more teeth to curb abuses.
Also on Wednesday, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III called for an immediate stop to Camp Crame’s practice of reassigning erring policemen to Mindanao, because “the South is deserving of honest and disciplined lawmen like the rest of the country.”
Pimentel said the PNP should file administrative cases against the erring lawmen so that they could be expelled from the PNP or send them back to the Police Academy for reeducation and reorientation of values.
In a press statement, Pimentel said he was expressing the dismay and apprehension of law-abiding citizens in the South for being the “favored dumping ground” for rogue policemen.
“Mindanao should be treated by the PNP with the same respect that all Filipinos deserve regardless of their faith, their culture, and their economic status,” Pimentel said.
“Give Mindanao the best men in uniform. Mindanao deserves nothing less,” Pimentel added. With John Paolo Bencito and Rio N. Araja