WHAT are we to make of President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to reinstate a police superintendent accused of profiting from the illegal drug trade, and who led a raid that looked more like a rubout than a legitimate law enforcement operation?
The President, who has promised to spare nobody—not even friends or relatives—from his bloody anti-drug war, has now made an exception for Supt. Marvin Marcos, the chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of Region 8.
Earlier, the chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), Dir. Gen. Ronald dela Rosa, had relieved Marcos and 17 other policemen while they were under investigation for the killing of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa in his jail cell, and for subsequent allegations that surfaced during a congressional investigation, that Marcos demanded and took payoffs from known drug lords.
Days later, however, Dela Rosa reinstated Marcos, saying someone from “higher up” called him with that order.
While the police chief refused to say who called him, Duterte admitted Friday that it was he who ordered Marcos reinstated so that he could pursue an independent investigation. He added that he wanted Marcos back in his post as regional chief of the PNP’s CIDG because he “needed to gather evidence” against the police official.
The President is well within his rights to countermand his PNP chief, but doing so on such a flimsy, illogical, and almost non-sensical reason suggests some—or all—of several possibilities.
First, the President could be protecting Marcos because the regional CIDG chief was doing his bidding when he and his men shot Espinosa dead while “executing a search warrant” inside his jail cell at a provincial prison at 4 a.m.
Second, it suggests the President will protect all policemen, regardless of their guilt or innocence, because they form the tip of the spear in his anti-illegal drugs campaign.
Third, it shows the President’s lack of confidence in his PNP chief.
Fourth, in reinstating a police officer under investigation and doing so surreptitiously, the President shows he holds no regard for public perception, and that he believes he is not accountable to anyone, not even the Filipino people.
Finally, Mr. Duterte’s action indicates there is a double standard in the application of justice in his war on illegal drugs, in which civilian suspects and innocent bystanders are routinely shot and killed, while police officers suspected of taking drug money or suspected of summary executions are reinstated after they get a light rap on the wrist.