A corrupt PNP
>> Monday, May 22, 2017
EDITORIAL
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has launched another
tirade against corrupt police, the frontline troops in his deadly drug war,
after four more officers were accused of kidnapping and extortion.
The arrest of the four
from Manila's financial district of Makati was the latest in a series of
scandals involving police that have raised concerns about their suitability to
prosecute the drug war.
The 160,000-member
police force is the main enforcer of Duterte's 10-month-old drugs crackdown
that has claimed thousands of lives and led to warnings he may be orchestrating
a crime against humanity.
Duterte admitted early
this year that the Philippine National Police was "corrupt to the
core", after several anti-drugs policeman were arrested on charges of
kidnapping and murdering a South Korean businessman as part of an extortion
scam.
Duterte pulled all
police off the drug war at that time and vowed to "cleanse" the
force. But after a brief lull he allowed the police to resume the anti-drug
crackdown without major reforms.
Duterte said Wednesday
he planned to appoint the armed forces' chief of staff, General Eduardo Ano, as
interior secretary when the general retires late this year, to help clean up
the police force, saying he has a “problem with the police."
The PNP again came
under fire last month after a dozen people, mainly drug suspects, were
discovered inside a closet-sized secret cell at a Manila police station.
Acting on a tip-off,
staff from the Commission on Human Rights, an independent government agency,
made a surprise visit to the police station and uncovered the cell.
The detainees told
them that the police were demanding money to release them. The commission on
Wednesday filed a complaint with the ombudsman in that case, accusing police of
illegal detention.
In the latest case
that attracted Duterte's ire, the four Makati police officers were arrested
late Tuesday for allegedly extorting money from a businessman and his
girlfriend whom they had detained the previous day.
"They demanded
400,000 pesos in exchange for their release," Senior Superintendent
Chiquito Malayo, head of a police anti-corruption unit, told reporters. He said
victims made an initial down payment.
The agreement with the
police extortionists was they had to complete the remaining balance the
following day, or on May 10, or else the family of the victims will be killed.
There are still
countless horror stories about police corruption and brutality all over the
country. If the President cannot cleanse the PNP of these misfits, the main law
enforcement agency of this country would still be considered by constituents as
just that – a corrupt and abusive government body.
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