UNA demands removal of Zamboanga Norte police chief
DAVAO CITY—The United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) has called on the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to immediately act on the complaints against a police official in Zamboanga del Norte.
UNA secretary general Toby Tiangco, in a statement sent to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, called on Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II, who has supervision over the Philippine National Police, to immediately act on the mounting complaints against Superintendent Reynaldo Maclang, commander of the Police Public Safety Company (PPSC) based in Dipolog City.
“There are urgent petitions to the Philippine National Police and Secretary Roxas to reprimand and file the necessary administrative charges against Maclang since 2011, coming from ordinary folks and even from international human rights groups, but all these appeals fell on deaf ears and were never acted upon by the PNP or the DILG,” Tiangco said.
Tiangco said Maclang has been involved in a string of cases ranging from grave abuse of authority to human rights violations. The most recent cases involving Maclang happened in the May 2013 elections.
Local UNA candidates had complained of harassment allegedly in the hands of Maclang and his men.
UNA mayoral candidate Mariano Candelaria Jr. and his running mate, Lolito Miraveles, of Gutalac, Zamboanga del Norte, in a joint complaint affidavit filed at the Commission on Elections (Comelec), claimed Maclang violated the Omnibus Election Code by engaging in partisan political activities and harassment to favor local candidates of the Liberal Party.
Tiangco said complaints have already been filed against Maclang in local courts, the Commission on Human Rights and the Comelec, but it seemed the cases are not moving.
Maclang is known to employ “buy-bust operations” as a tactic to arrest personal and political enemies. Maclang was still promoted despite complaints and serious allegations of extrajudicial killings and other forms of human rights violations against him.
Maclang has put five media men in jail: Ryan Uy, Joseph Herrera, Ferdinand Lear, Genesis Ajero and Roy Villar, while 169 others are languishing behind bars as a result allegedly of arbitrary arrests. Inquirer Mindanao
