EDITORIAL - Broken mechanisms

With all the horror stories emerging from the ongoing probe of drug-related killings in the previous administration, people are wondering how the abuses committed by ranking Philippine National Police officials got past the internal disciplinary mechanism of the PNP.

A police officer still in the active service, Lt. Col. Santie Mendoza of the PNP Drug Enforcement Group, has told the so-called quad committee of the House of Representatives that two retired police officials, Royina Garma and Edilberto Leonardo, were behind the July 2020 assassination of another former PNP official, Wesley Barayuga.

Garma at the time was the general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office – a post that she denies she earned because of her alleged special ties with then president Rodrigo Duterte. Leonardo was then assigned to the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group regional unit in the Davao region. Barayuga, as board secretary of the PCSO, was reportedly set to disclose anomalies linked to the Small Town Lottery. After his murder, the Duterte administration claimed he was on the drug watchlist.

Both Garma and Leonardo, currently a commissioner of the National Police Commission, have also been linked to the execution of three Chinese drug convicts held at the Davao penal colony in 2016. Leonardo is also one of five former and incumbent PNP officials being investigated by the International Criminal Court in connection with possible crimes against humanity committed in the course of Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal campaign against illegal drugs.

The PNP counts over 6,000 drug suspects killed in law enforcement operations during the Duterte administration. The probe being conducted jointly by four House committees is providing the most detailed picture yet of the abuses by the police in waging the war on drugs. What was the PNP Internal Affairs Service doing in the years when Duterte was president, and when he was mayor of Davao City?

Local government units also have People’s Law Enforcement Boards, which are tasked to handle public complaints against PNP members. Did PLEBs nationwide look the other way in the face of gross police abuses in the war on drugs? Were IAS members sleeping in the noodle house, or ordered to bury their head in the sand? Shouldn’t they be held accountable for dereliction of duty?

The mechanisms for promoting discipline and preventing wrongdoing in the PNP, imposing punishment for abuses and giving the public avenues for redress are broken. The quad committee probe should lead to reforms that will fix or replace these mechanisms.