PNP should show ‘rapist cops’ in jail

The damage inflicted on the entire police organization by three “rapist cops” from Manila and Quezon City looks irreparable if no serious actions are taken by the Philippine National Police leadership.

PO1 Eduardo Valencia, a member of Station 4 of the Manila Police District, reportedly raped a 15-year-old girl in a case of “sex for freedom.”

The other two cops from the Quezon City police’s Novaliches station, namely Police Officers 1 Jayson Portuguez and Severiano Montalban III, bastardized the patrol car by converting it into a “roving motel” where they allegedly raped the 22-year-old live-in partner of an arrested gambling suspect.

Of course, PNP Director Oscar Albayalde says the three lawmen will be jailed because rape is a nonbailable crime. But a lot of people continue to have doubts about cops punishing their own kind.

I am sure Albayalde, Metro Manila police chief Director Guillermo Eleazar and other PNP officers want to boot out and jail these scalawags.

But why do we doubt their word? Because time and again, we have heard of different schemes to get around the PNP-Department of the Interior and Local Government mechanism for dealing with scalawag cops.

PNP records show that since 2016, a total of 14,515 administrative cases have been filed against policemen.

Of these, 8,422 cases were resolved while 6,093 cases remain pending. Also on record, 2,818 cops have been dismissed since Mr. Duterte took over.

In January, PNP Personnel Management released an initial breakdown of some of the cases pending against the policemen: 22 for murder, 10 for kidnapping, 6 for homicide, 3 for rape, 23 for robbery-extortion, 70 for grave misconduct, 91 for being absent without leave, 151 for drug addiction and 161 others for drug-related offenses.

Why do these cops engage in these crimes when government doubled their salaries and increased their benefits?

Something is wrong with the disciplinary system in the PNP.

Being civilian in character, it takes time to punish and dismiss policemen while they continue to harass complainants.

I suggest we create a stockade or jail to really restrict the movements of these abusive policemen and show them to the public.

If possible, remove the civilian character of the PNP and adopt the “court martial rule” of the Armed Forces.

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Last Friday, the Department of Agriculture (DA) and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), with the help of PNP, promised to impose sanctions on rice traders and retailers who fail to comply with suggested retail prices (SRPs).

Penalties include from 4 months to 4 years in jail and a fine of up to P1 million plus the cancelation of their National Food Authority license.

No SRPs yet for chicken and pork but the rule agreed upon is a P50 markup for chicken and P70 markup for pork from farm gate prices.

But the problem centers on pork and chicken traders/distributors who are not registered with both DTI and DA.

Yet, they are the ones who dictate the day-to-day prices of pork and chicken in the retail market. How can DTI and DA punish them when they don’t know who they are?

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