MANILA, Philippines — Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde on Thursday maintained he could not have influenced Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief Aaron Aquino on the non-implementation of the dismissal order against the 13 Pampanga policemen.
The 13 police officers were found guilty of grave misconduct in 2014 for failing to account for all confiscated drugs during an illegal buy-bust operation in Mexico, Pampanga, in November 2013. were initially ordered dismissed but were merely demoted by one rank after filing a motion for reconsideration in March 2016.
Albayalde was the Pampanga police provincial director when the 2013 illegal buy-bust operation took place. Albayalde was chief of the National Capital Region Police Office in 2016 before becoming PNP chief in April 2018.
Aquino, who was Central Luzon police chief in 2013, admitted during Thursday’s Senate hearing on “ninja cops” that Albayalde had called him in 2016 and asked him to not implement the dismissal order against the 13 policemen.
Ninja cops refer to policemen who pilfer and sell illegal drugs that were confiscated during operations.
READ: Aquino retracts: Albayalde asked me not to implement dismissal order vs Pampanga cops
But Albayalde explained that even before he called Aquino about the case of the 13 Pampanga policemen, their motion for reconsideration was “already partially granted.”
“Whether I called or not, wala pong nagbago doon sa decision niya (Aquino). (Whether I called or not, nothing changed in his (Aquino) decision). It’s because even during the time of General Lacadin, the motion for reconsideration was already partially granted from dismissal to demotion,” Albayalde pointed out.
“Hindi naimpluwensyahan si General Aquino dahil ‘yung decision po diyan, noon pa [the motion] is already partially granted (General Aquino was not influenced because the decision on that case, even then, was already partially granted),” he added. /kga