PNP wants narcopols, Red backers stripped of armed security
MANILA, Philippines — A month before the midterm elections, Gen. Oscar Albayalde, chief of the Philipine National Police (PNP), wants the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to remove the police and armed civilian escorts of politicians on President Rodrigo Duterte’s so-called narcolist and those suspected of supporting the communist insurgents.
“We communicated with the Comelec so they would give us authority to immediately remove the security [detail] of those [people] on the narcolist,” Albayalde said on Tuesday after a meeting of the National Joint Security Coordination Center at Camp Aguinaldo.
Comelec Chair Sheriff Abas said the poll body was studying the PNP request.
Albayalde said some narcopoliticians may have successfully applied for security escorts from the Comelec.
Aside from the 46 politicians on the President’s narcolist, 349 mayors and governors suspected of supporting the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, may be stripped of their security escorts, the PNP chief said.
“Providing security is not a right, it’s a privilege so it can always be revoked,” Albayalde said.
Rights groups and members of the political opposition have accused the President of using his war on drugs as a cover to crack down on his critics.
Such killings strike fear in the hearts of “politicians, especially in the provinces, who are then forced to toe Duterte’s line,” Carlos Conde, Philippine researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, said in a Time interview.
But Albayalde assured the politicians that the police would continue to provide area security for them at campaign rallies. —Jeannette I. Andrade
