Bato: ‘Cops involved in EJKs have no balls’

BuCor Director General Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa. Photo by Gabriel Pabico Lalu / INQUIRER.net

Police officers involved in extrajudicial killings (EJKs) have no balls, BuCor Director General Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa said.

Dela Rosa, former chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), said this on Friday moments after he filed his certificate of candidacy for senator at the Commission on Elections headquarters in Manila.

READ: Bato files COC, seeks Senate seat in 2019 polls

“Galit na galit ako diyan. Hindi dapat gawin ‘yan. Walang bayag ang gumagawa niyan as I have said. Mga talawan. Mga duwag. Dapat ayusin nila yung trabaho nila,” he said with a raised voice, referring to police officers engaged in EJKs.

(I am really angry about it. That should not be done. Those who do it don’t have balls as I have said. They are cowards. They should do their jobs well.)

Dela Rosa said he does not deny that EJKs exist in the country, as he cited some police officers allegedly engaged in such crimes.

“Hindi ko dine-deny. Meron tayong mga nahuli, ‘di ba? ‘Yung mga pulis na ‘yung pumatay kay Kian sa Caloocan. Pulis ang gumawa non. ‘Yung pumatay sa Koreano na si Jee Ick Joo, pulis ‘yun,” he said.

(I do not deny it. We have caught some, right? Those who killed Kian in Caloocan, it’s the police who did that. The one who killed Korean national Jee Ick Joo, that’s also a police officer.)

“But hinuli natin. Kinasuhan natin. Hindi natin kino-condone (But we arrested them. We filed cases against them. We do not condone it),” he added.

Dela Rosa was referring to Kian delos Santos, the 17-year old boy killed in the anti-drug war in 2017, and Jee Ick Joo, a South Korean businessman strangled in his own vehicle inside the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame in 2016. /je