Malacañang said the public should not generalize the Philippine National Police as abusive based on the actions of a cop who shot dead a 52-year-old woman in Quezon City.

“That is the exception to the rule. We cannot do anything. Every organization has a bad egg. But please, we have hundreds of thousands in our ranks of policemen and we hear one or two cases of this nature,” Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said in a virtual press briefing on on Tuesday, June 1.

He said the PNP is “by and large, professional.”

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The PNP intends to file a murder complaint and an administrative case against Police Master Sergeant Hensie Zinampan who killed Lilybeth Valdez in Fairview, Quezon City, as she was buying something from a store.

Valdez’s murder has once again rallied critics of the administration, which has been accused of protecting police in order to continue with a controversial anti-drugs campaign. The Duterte government has also been slammed for what some call an overly militaristic response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Police force faces other controversies

Hours after news broke of the killing, the hashtag #PulisAngTerorista (the police are the terrorists) trended on social media.

The incident in Quezon City happened a week after cops killed an autistic teenager, supposedly during a scuffle following his arrest for allged illegal cockfighting.

In April 2020, a former soldier was shot by cops enforcing stay-at-home rules. The National Bureau of Investigation concluded that it was murder and that the cops even planted evidence in an attempt to get away with the deed.

Duterte himself has repeatedly said he would protect cops as long as they enforced the law properly but he has also given statements encouraging cops and soldiers to kill drug suspects or shoot human rights activists. – Rappler.com