SENATE President Aquilino Pimentel III on Tuesday lauded President Rodrigo Duterte’s rejection of a plan by the Philippine National Police to retrain police officers involved in misconduct.
The President on Sunday said erring cops should remain “suspended all over,” adding putting them under retraining process would not make them better cops but rather “better scalawags.”
“This only shows President Duterte’s political will to cleanse the ranks of the PNP of hoodlum cops,” said Pimentel.
The PNP earlier revealed some 387 policemen had been recalled and reassigned inside Camp Crame to undergo disciplinary retraining.
Pimentel said that there was no place for rogue cops anywhere in the country and they should be sacked immediately once proven guilty of committing illicit activities.
Pimentel is the highest official to criticize the old PNP practice of reassigning erring policemen to Mindanao.
He said Mindanao region also deserved honest and disciplined law enforcers like the rest of the country.
The Senate President said bad cops should go directly to jail if proven guilty rather than being redeployed in other areas, particularly in Mindanao.
This was supported by Senator Cynthia Villar who said pushups were punishments too light against policemen who committed the serious offense of betrayal of public trust.
“I can understand the frustration of our people hearing about police authorities masterminding kidnapping operations, extortion and summary executions. These are the people who vowed to serve and protect. If the police cannot be trusted, where will our people go?” Villar asked.
Villar said there was merit in the creation of a task force that would investigate and operate against erring cops, pending a formal document stating in detail the scope and composition of the task force.
PNP Chief Ronald Dela Rosa created the Counter-Intelligence Task Force led by Sr. Supt. Jose Chiquito Malayo to go after police officers involved in illegal activities.
It is composed of 100 police personnel from the PNP Special Action Force and the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.
“We should send a strong signal that these activities will never be condoned and that we will not let a handful destroy the whole of the police organization,” Villar said.
She welcomed the pronouncement of Duterte, saying policemen who use the anti-narcotics drive as a cover for illegal activities wwould be transferred to conflict areas in Mindanao.
“This is letting the public know the administration can also be harsh on police scalawags, not only on perpetrators of illegal drugs. And, certainly, being harsh is not only letting them do pushups,” she said.
To the proposal for scalawag cops from the National Capital Region Police to clear the Pasig River of water lilies, Villar said she would be willing to accept the water lilies as materials for the weaving enterprises of Las Pinas residents.
PNP mounted an internal cleansing drive after several police officers got involved in the kidnapping and killing of Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo.
Oppositicn lawmakers meanwhile urged the Duterte administratiin to take drastic actions against police scalawags and the issue of corruption in the PNP.
Rep. Teddy Baguilat, Jr. said the government’s firm resolve to address the crisis in the PNP would be “crucial” to the Duterte administration’s “survival.”
“Let us remember that the government’s anti-criminality campaign is the bread and.butter of the Duterte administration. That is where they get their high ratings,” Baguilat told a news conference.
“Because of the recent developments, suspension of war against drugs–and yet the response was only push-ups as sanctions–the police lost the public trust. So who is going to make this anti-criminality campaign successful?” he asked.
For his part, Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice said the administration’s war on drugs emboldened “police criminals.”
Erice said the collateral damage caused by the government’s war on drugs was “irreversible” even as he called on the President to “rethink” the government’s approach.
“What President Duterte must to do now is to fix the mess in the police force. We should rethink (the) war on drugs,” Erice said.
For his part, Northern Samar Rep. Raul Daza laughed at Dela Rosa when the latter publicly ordered Angeles City policemen linked to robbery-extortion of three South Korean tourists to do push-ups.
Daza said the order even seemed to be a “reward.”
“Why punish police with push-ups when they violate the law?” Daza asked.
“Push-ups is a form of exercise for physical fitness. This is as if rewarding them with pushups to make them physically fit,” Daza said.