The sacked Bacolod City chief of police Francisco Ebreo was protecting a suspected narco-politician in Bacolod City, President Rodrigo Duterte said on Wednesday as he ordered as well the immediate relief of the five Bacolod policemen.
Even though Ebreo might not have direct links to the illegal drug trade, Duterte said the top Bacolod police official, however, was using his position to protect a narco-politician.
“At the very least, he’s a protector cop. He might not be in the trafficking business, but he was really a protector,” the President told Palace reporters.
“I cannot believe that with all the information available to every chief of police or city police director assigned in the province, you would [still] not review the record of the province in terms of criminality and drug trafficking. I think, it was studied,” he added.
According to the President, Ebreo was protecting Bacolod City Councilor Ricardo “Cano” Tan, who has been tagged as a drug lord by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.
“There was this Cano. A councilor [who] has been tagged by the PDEA almost a decade ago to be engaged in [drug] trafficking, he was ambushed,” the President shared.
“There were about three ambushes before that incident where they went to the hospital, the two of them with his deputy. What’s [their] f*cking business going to the hospital of [an ambushed drug lord?] They even assigned two security officers there,” Duterte added.
For the President, the assignment of the city’s first and second highest police officials to keep an ambushed drug lord safe seems to be a “strange behavior.”
“I could understand if you would send a topnotch investigator of the police, I would understand that. But if you would send the first and the second highest of police officials, I really doubted why it happened,” Duterte said.
In December last year, Tan and his wife Nita survived an ambush carried out by three unidentified suspects.
Tan walked away from the incident with only slight injuries caused by broken glass.
The Palace also earlier confirmed that Ebreo and his men were welcomed by an angry Duterte in a meeting in Malacañang Tuesday evening.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said Duterte, who has been vocal that law enforcers must not misuse their power against the law, severely reprimanded the relieved police officers. Nat Mariano
“PRRD gave the police officers a dressing down and castigated them for allowing the proliferation of illegal drugs to persist in Bacolod,” Panelo said in a statement.
“The President particularly expressed his frustration as to why they had no knowledge about the presence of certain personalities in Bacolod who are involved in the illegal drug industry,” he added.
Last weekend, the President announced the termination of Ebreo, Supt. Allan Macapagal, Senior Insp. Victor Paulino, and Supt. Ritchie Yatar, and Supt. Nassrudin Tayuan for they were “in cahoots with a drug syndicate.”
Ebreo, Macapagal, Paulino, and Yatar were then reassigned to Regional Personnel Holding and Accounting Unit in Iloilo through special order from the Philippine National Police.
Tayuan, on the other hand, has not been assigned to Bacolod since June 2018.
Meanwhile, Panelo clarified that the mentioned police officers would remain relieved from their present posts pending the investigation, assuring them that they would still follow an administrative process for their alleged crimes.
“This swift action of the President is a timely warning to other PNP officers that the President will not tolerate incompetence and inefficiency in the police force, especially with respect to the Administration’s crusade versus illegal drugs,” Panelo said, reiterating that the administration’s flagship war on drugs will remain “firm and relentless” even against violative policemen.