MANILA, Philippines — The new chiefs of the Eastern Police District (EPD) and Pasay City police have assumed their posts as they were given a free hand to select the members of their respective drug enforcement units (DEUs).
Chief Superintendent Christopher Tambungan assumed command of the EPD on Thursday. Senior Superintendent Bernard Young took over as Pasay police chief on Friday.
National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) chief Director Guillermo Eleazar gave Tambungan and Young authority to choose officers from any police units in Metro Manila to become members of their DEUs.
“They can select their personnel from any of the five police districts. Anyway, they would be accountable to them,”Eleazar said.
Last week, Philippine National Police chief Director General Oscar Albayalde relieved Chief Superintendent Bernabe Balba and Senior Superintendent Noel Flores as EPD director and Pasay police chief, respectively, for command responsibility.
Balba and Flores were sacked after members of their respective DEUs were arrested for allegedly extorting money from the families of detained drug suspects.
“It is our mandate to clean our ranks of scalawags. It’s unfortunate that Balba and Flores had to go because of the mistakes of their men,” Eleazar said.
“Their relief should serve as a warning to other police district chiefs and station commanders that we mean business when it comes to the government’s war on drugs,”he added.
The NCRPO also sacked 15 anti-narcotics officers of the EPD following the arrest of Police Officer 2 Mario Quibete, who allegedly extorted P200,000 in exchange for the release of an arrested drug suspect.
Twenty-seven members of the Pasay police DEU were also fired after PO2 Anwar Nasser was nabbed by agents of the Counter Intelligence Task Force for alleged extortion.
Quibete, Nasser and eight other policemen are undergoing summary dismissal proceedings. Cases of robbery and extortion were filed against them before the Pasig and Pasay City prosecutor’s offices.
Eleazar ordered Tambungan and Young to conduct background investigation of the anti-narcotics officers to make sure that they would not the use the war on drugs in shakedown.