INCOMING Philippine National Police director general Chief Superintendent Rolando Dela Rosa admitted the authorities may not be able to achieve President-elect Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign promise of stopping criminality in three to six months.
“In six months, it should be 100 percent. Our objective is that high,” Dela Rosa told journalists. “But I am sure we cannot achieve these goals.”
Saying he will resign if he failes to fulfill Duterte’s promise, he said the PNP’s strategy will be based on closely monitoring statistical targets.
“For example, in three to six months, 50 percent of the problem must be solved. After three months, we need to achieve another 60 percent,” he said.
“However, we cannot achieve an outright 100 percent. If we fail, at least [we resolved] 60 percent to 70 percent,” Dela Rosa added, pledging not to fudge crime statistics just so to make it appear that the police is succeeding in the promised anti-crime drive.
“I will present that to the President,” he said. “You judge if I failed or not.”
But several groups have decried the police’s implementation of the so-called “Oplan Rody [Rid the streets of Drunks and Youth]” just to ingratiate themselves with Duterte.
The latest to complain was the youth group Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan which is “deeply concerned” about the ongoing police operations in several cities in Metro Manila, stressing that such is “unjust and impracticable.”
The group said the police’s Oplan Rody “shows utter disregard to realities” of an evolving and booming metropolis and will “harken back to the darker days of our history.”
The group said the police has failed to consider major societal changes in the country making hundreds of thousands of enrolled, working and even out-of-school youth automatic prey to the absolutist and unrealistic decrees.
The young activists called for the immediate end of Oplan Rody until city councils modify their resolutions and take into consideration the realities of present-day conditions, lay down the mechanisms that will safeguard the youth from human rights abuses possibly by law enforcement units and more importantly address the societal roots of petty crime.
“The K-12-ready schools are congested and will require the employment of shifts reaching up to 9 p.m. to accommodate all enrollees,” said Joanne Lim, leader of SPARK in the University of the Philippines, Diliman campus.
The activists also raised the issue of working students, who are more likely to be scheduled to work on graveyard shifts so as not to collide with the class schedules.
