THE war on drugs required “psyschological warfare,” the chief of the Philippine National Police Ronald Dela Rosa said Tuesday, to justify President Rodrigo Duterte’s threat to kill all drug suspects.
“Maybe, the statements of the President were to scare drug pushers and addicts,” said Dela Rosa in response to a query from Senator Francis Escudero on whether the government had a policy of killing drug suspects.
Testifying in the second hearing by the Senate committee on justice and human rights into the spate of drug-related killings, Dela Rosa dismissed accusations that they were bound to kill people with links to drugs.
“None your honor. We always follow the rules of law,” Dela Rosa said in response to Escudero’s question.
He said the threats were meant to scare those connected with illegal drugs and to get them to surrender to the authorities.
Asked if the President had ever given the police a shoot-to-kill order against drug suspects, Dela Rosa said yes, but only if the suspects are armed and put up a fight.
He said the shoot-to-kill order was just “rhetoric… to scare bad people.”
Dela Rosa guaranteed that the PNP would not tolerate scalawags within its ranks, and said he had immediately relieved all Antipolo policemen involved in the case of Mary Rose Aquino, who said her parents were recruited by police to pack drugs, then killed.
Under questioning by Senator Greogrio Honasan, Dela Rosa said the police are not butchers who arbitrarily kill people.
Despite the gains made against illegal drugs, Dela Rosa said he was saddened that some quarters make it appear that the police were “the bad guys.”
“That pains us. We are not murderers. We are the police. We are here to serve and protect. We are not butchers who kill for no reason at all,” said Dela Rosa.
Responding to the question of Senator Joel Villanueva, De la Rosa said more than 700 drug suspects were presumed to have resisted arrests in the police operations.
If they did not resist arrest, they would be alive, Dela Rosa said.
At this juncture, De Lima interrupted. “Excuse me, do all of these cases have similar situations? All of them, that’s the official version? They fought back?”
De la Rosa said yes, then corrected the figure to 756 dead.
Asked if he was putting on record that all 756 had resisted arrest and that this would be supported by a corresponding police report, Dela Rosa said yes.
De Lima replied: “Are you sure of that, sir?”
“Your honor, unless proven otherwise, there’s controverting evidence, I presume that my men are performing their duties regularly,” Dela Rosa said.
Senate President Pro Tempore Franklin Drilon inquired on the official count of drug-related deaths following conflicting figures earlier presented to the Senate panel.
The PNP on Monday said it recorded 712 deaths during police operations and 1,067 outside of police operations or “deaths under investigation.”
But at the resumption of the hearing on Tuesday, Dela Rosa gave different figures—756 deaths during police operations and 1,160 deaths under investigation.
“Does it mean that in the past 24 hours, 237 died?” Drilon asked.
“Not necessarily your honor, we are updating, your honor, there were new discoveries. You would be more alarmed, your honor, if we decreased the figures—the dead people yesterday become alive today. But it’s the contrary, the alive people today were now dead so the number increased because of police operations, aggressive police operations,” Dela Rosa said.
During the start of the hearing, Dela Rosa gave a presentation that showed that 18 policemen and eight AFP members have been killed in anti-drug operations since July 1.
Dela Rosa added that 284 police officials have been relieved and transferred to other units.
He said 43 policemen on the drug list of the President who surrendered to Dela Rosa have been transferred to the PNP’s personnel holding and accounting unit.
Human Rights Watch described the human toll in the drug war as “shocking.”
“Police statistics show that from July 1 to August 19, 2016, police have killed an estimated 712 suspected ‘drug pushers and users’,” Phelim Kine, Deputy Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, said during a hearing in the Senate.
Kine said the death toll constitutes a more than 10-fold jump over the 68 such police killings recorded between Jan. 1 and June 15, a period of over five months.
In Tacloban City, a lawyer for Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa, who was linked to illegal drugs, and a 15-year-old schoolgirl were killed in an ambush.
Police identified the victims as Espinosa’s lawyer, Rogelio Bato, and Angelica Bonita, 15.
PO2 Harvey Subide said Bato who was driving a maroon Toyota Hilux with Bonita on his side on the front seat were traversing along Barangay 96 when they were hit with heavy gunfire.