The purge

IN recent months, when the Philippine government ushered in a new leadership under President Rodrigo Duterte, members of the police seemed to be invincible. Because they’re the government’s first line of defense—and offense—against the war it waged on illegal drugs and criminality, the police managed to remain unscathed, despite mounting poor public perception and criticisms over some officers’ alleged abuse of power and violation of human rights.
The country saw a wave of drugs-related killings since July last year. More than 7,669 deaths have been linked to the administration’s war on drugs, but only 2,555 alleged drug personalities were killed during police operations, which the officers involved say were all in self-defense. The other deaths are classified as investigated, or under investigation.
The president defended the spate of drug-related killings and even admitted to personally killing suspects when he was still the mayor of Davao City.
“In Davao, I used to do it personally, just to show to the (police) that if I can do it, why can’t you?” Duterte said in December last year.
However, Duterte maintained that he is not condoning extrajudicial killings, saying that his directive to police authorities was to hunt for drug suspects and “arrest them if it’s possible, but if they offer a violent resistance…then kill them.”
In October last year, a police van rammed into a crowd of anti-U.S. protesters who were calling for an end to American military presence in the Philippines. The van barreled back and forth into the crowd of demonstrators, scattering them like bowling pins and running over on a few of them.
Duterte did not justify the police officer’s actions over the violent dispersal and maintained that he did not want any of the police officers nor the militants hurt.
“I’m not justifying it. Just maybe he was under stress. They might gang up on him, hurt him. So he acted by instinct, self-preservation,” he said. A total of 50 protesters and 34 police officer were injured during the encounter.
In November, Albuera, Leyte Mayor and alleged drug lord Rolando Espinosa Sr. was killed in an alleged “firefight” with the operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Northern Leyte (CIDG8) while being detained at the Baybay, Leyte Sub-Provincial Jail after being charged with possession of illegal drugs and unlicensed firearms.
CIDG operatives went to the prison to serve him a search warrant when the encounter occurred but Espinosa allegedly resisted the arrest after which the firefight ensured. Espinosa and Raul Yap, another detainee, were killed during the encounter.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) inquiry called the incident a police rubout and recommended the filing of murder and perjury charges against the CIDG officers.
Duterte vowed to protect the CIDG officers, saying he was more inclined to believe the police than the testimony of criminals.
“I will not allow these guys to go to prison, even if the NBI says it was murder. After all, the NBI is under me, the Department of Justice,” he said.
On Sunday, Jan. 29, Duterte had a sudden change of heart when he ordered the halt on the Philippine National Police (PNP)’s drug war and demanded a cleansing of the police force instead.
“The culture of corruption in the police is deep. Even generals are into it,” he said in a meeting with military generals at Malacañang on Tuesday, Jan. 31. He ordered for some members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to go after police scalawags. the order came in the wake of the kidnapping for ransom and murder of South Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo inside the police headquarters in Campe Crame, Quezon City.
PNP Chief Director General Ronald Dela Rosa confirmed this directive saying that the cleansing of the organization comes after a series of scandals involving police officers.
After what seemed like a string of criminal incidents wherein policemen are involved as perpetrators, the very organization bound by law to uphold the law and protect the citizenry from criminality is hounded by bad cops. It is a betrayal of trust and a degradation of peace and security.
The PNP is now tasked to not just ensure the public’s safety and purge misfits from the streets, it must do so within its ranks. This calls for strong and effective civilian oversight of the police. (AJPress)