MANILA, Philippines— Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde “dropped the ball” big time.
Senator Richard Gordon repeatedly said this during Thursday’s hearing of the Senate committee on justice, which he chairs.
“We are very serious and to me, when the Senate is insulted, we turn really, really nasty. And that’s not a threat. We want you to know that we are serious about this,” Gordon said.
“So I will call a spade a spade. You dropped the ball big time on this one. You dropped the ball.”
And when Albayalde was about to say something, the senator cut him and repeatedly said: “No, no. You dropped the ball from the very beginning, you dropped the ball…” referring to the idiomatic expression that means “to mishandle things or commit mistake.”
Albayalde has been put in a spotlight during the ongoing Senate inquiry when Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, former head of the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, disclosed that he intervened in the case of 13 Pampanga policemen charged over a 2013 questionable anti-drug operation in Pampanga.
During the time, Albayalde was Pampanga police director.
But when the Pampanga policemen were ordered dismissed and a motion for reconsideration had been filed, Albayalde allegedly called then Regional Police Office 3 (RPO 3) and now Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency chief Aaron Aquino.
Albayalde was the director general of the National Capital Region Police Office when he called up Aquino.
Aquino confirmed that Albayalde inquired about the status of the case and then asked him not to implement the dismissal order.
READ: Aquino recants; pins Albayalde on case vs Pampanga cops
In October 2017, the involved Pampanga police officers were demoted by one rank, and not dismissed, by Aquino’s successor at Regional Police Office 3 (RPO 3).
When Albayalde was relieved from his post after the 2013 raid, Gordon said the PNP chief “just accepted it.”
He said the PNP chief ”dropped the ball” because as then Pampanga police chief, Albayalde should have known, at the very least he should know about the operations of his own men.
“Unang-una [First of all] he [Albyalde] should know what the procedures are. He should know that there’s an operation going on and he did not care,” Gordon said in an interview after the hearing.
The senator insisted that Albayalde was negligent.
“You can be negligent in the beginning but you can be participant later on,” Gordon pointed out, noting Aquino’s admission that Albayalde had asked him not to enforce the dismissal order against the Pampanga policemen. /jpv
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