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#AnimatED: PNP and the Duterte effect

Rappler.com

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#AnimatED: PNP and the Duterte effect
President Duterte is weakening the PNP as a law enforcement institution

Let’s get the facts straight. 

Sometime before November 5, Director General Ronald dela Rosa, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), had received intelligence reports that one of his officers, Superintendent Marvin Marcos, was receiving money from a drug lord in exchange for protection.

He acted on these reports and relieved Marcos, who was based in Leyte as head of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Region 8 (Eastern Visayas). 

But the President intervened. Duterte called Dela Rosa and ordered him to reinstate Marcos. 

Marcos reported back to work and on November 5, led a team from the CIDG that attempted to serve a search warrant on Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr, who was detained in a Leyte jail, on charges of drug trafficking.

We all know how this ended. Espinosa was murdered in what some senators regard as a clear case of extrajudicial killing. So far, this has been the most blatant of the thousands of extrajudicial killings committed under Duterte’s war on drugs. 

A key issue needs to be addressed here: Why was Marcos reinstated? There are 2 versions. 

Dela Rosa said he had to “balance disciplinary action and compassion towards his men.” Marcos, he pointed out, was worried about the family members he would leave behind in Leyte as his relief would mean he would move to Camp Crame.

Duterte gave a different reason: he wanted Marcos on the job so that a case could be built against him: “Because I was keeping track of his movements. If you take him out, then…everything will disappear. I can’t follow up.”

If we are to believe the President, his logic reveals preferential treatment for Marcos. If the top cop, Duterte’s trusted man, found the intelligence reports on Marcos credible enough to relieve him and initiate a probe, why mess it up? 

Remember that the President sided with Marcos and his team, believing their story that Espinosa was killed in a shootout. 

The President’s obsession with his war on drugs is weakening the PNP as a law enforcement institution. He is eroding the rule of law in the police force. 

By ordering them to kill, kill, kill, he has stripped them of any notion of due process. This is alarming.

We shudder to think of the long-term impact of all this on the PNP, which has, through the years, tried to integrate respect for human rights among its men and women. – Rappler.com

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