EDITORIAL - Stopping ‘tokhang for ransom’

In August last year, a couple filed a complaint against five policemen in Laguna for detaining them under the guise of a drug bust and then extorting P215,000 in exchange for their release. Last week the Philippine National Police dismissed the five for grave misconduct.

The five – Police Officers 3 Troyluss Ambrocius Yideso and Warren Ryan Carpena, PO2 John Alicbusan and Police Officers 1 Glecerio Cruzen and Clayson Benabese – are in the custody of the Laguna provincial police. The finding of administrative guilt should speed up the judicial resolution of the criminal charges they still face for robbery-extortion.

Adjudication of the criminal case must be speeded up so that there will be less temptation for other crooked cops to use the war on drugs for personal profit. The five cops’ modus operandi has been called tokhang for ransom. Other anti-narcotics cops have been accused of using the same MO even before Oplan Tokhang was launched. Drugs are planted as evidence on innocent victims, who are then asked to cough out money so they are spared from arrest and criminal indictment. Or else real drug dealers are apprehended, detained and then allowed to buy their way to freedom.

The good news is that the five cops, who were assigned in Sta. Rosa, Laguna before they detained Rommel dela Cruz and his wife Cristy on trumped-up drug charges, have been dismissed from the PNP and are facing trial for their crime. There are several other cases that must be resolved quickly, among them the kidnapping, robbery-extortion and brutal execution of South Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo by members of the main police anti-drug team outside the unit’s office right inside PNP headquarters at Camp Crame.

There are cops who believe they have been given blanket authority to do whatever they want in battling the illegal drug trade. The war cannot be won as long as this belief persists. Punishing extortionists and other abusive cops is the best way to dispel that belief.