President Rodrigo Duterte announced Saturday that he has sacked the Bacolod City chief of police and four other officers for their alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade.
At a birthday celebration of a businessman in Bacolod City, Duterte said the city’s police chief, Francis Ebreo and four other officers were terminated because they were “in cahoots with [a] drug syndicate.”
“I’d like to know if the chief of police is here. If you are here kindly stand up because you are fired as of this moment,” the President said during the birthday celebration of businessman Leo Rey Yanson.
“In your involvement in drugs and making the people of Bacolod miserable, I am relieving and dismissing you from the service as of now, Senior Supt. Francis Ebreo,” he added.
He said the erring policemen were protecting a drug syndicate in Bacolod.
“Then you have Superintendent Tayuan… And Superintendent Yatar… And there is Victor Paulino, a police senior inspector… Macapagal, you are out,” he said.
He ordered the four to report to his office in Malacañang on Monday at 2 p.m.
Ebreo, Supt. Allan Macapagal, Senior Insp. Victor Paulino, and Supt. Ritchie Yatar were reassigned to Regional Personnel Holding and Accounting Unit in Iloilo over the weekend.
Supt. Nassrudin Tayuan, on the other hand, has not been assigned to Bacolod since June 2018.
Two months ago, Duterte announced that he would give P1 million to anyone who could pinpoint “narco-cops” or “ninja cops.”
In August 2018, Duterte confronted 100 erring police officers facing charges ranging from absence without leave to rape and kidnapping.
He said illegal activities of the police officers are tainting the image of the PNP, which carries out his flagship war on drugs.
READ: Duterte goes all out for war on drugs
Chief Supt. John Bulalacao, director of Police Regional Office-6, said he has designated Senior Supt. Henry Biñas as officer-in-charge of the Bacolod police effective Sunday.
Biñas, who is in Iloilo City, said in a telephone interview that he was preparing to assume the top post of BCPO.
Before his latest assignment, Biñas was chief of the Regional Personnel and Human Resource Development Division of PRO-6 based in Camp Martin Delgado in Iloilo City, and was previously director of Iloilo City Police Office and Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office.
The relief of Ebreo came 14 months after he assumed post as OIC city police director in November 2017.
In May last year, Ebreo and Paulino were awarded the PNP Medal of Merit for demonstrating exemplary competence and commendable performance during the operation against notorious drug leader Ramy Poja, the number one most wanted person of Police Station 3, who was killed after a hot pursuit operation in Sitio Sibucao, Barangay Banago.
In 2018, the BCPO seized more than P42.157 million worth of shabu in 432 operations. With PNA
