DOJ chief: Laws have cracks, need tweaking to deter ‘ninja cops’

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Thursday called for a review of the laws on dangerous drugs and the handling of drug cases to prevent “reselling” of confiscated drugs and other abuses that have been unearthed in a Senate investigation.

“A reevaluation and scrutiny of our laws against dangerous drugs and of our country’s legal processes [that] relate to these cases are therefore necessary if we’re to catch up with the realities on the ground,” Guevarra said in a speech at the National Summit on Dangerous Drugs Law in Manila.

Guevarra said disclosures at the Senate hearings, if proven true, raised the “disturbing possibility” of how officers mandated by law to fight and contain the menace of dangerous drugs could be corrupted by the very criminals they should arrest and jail.

Drug trading in jail

“Just as disturbing is the very real possibility that even when convicted and imprisoned, criminals involved in the illegal drugs business could continue to operate within their prison cells no less,” he added.

The alleged existence of so-called ninja cops, Guevarra said, “should force us to rid our laws and legal processes of cracks—

no matter how small—so that we may likewise expose and purge out of [the] government those who are bent on using their office to perpetuate their nefarious undertakings.”

The disclosures in the Senate hearings “may create not only a disturbing impression of the inability of our legal institutions to address the drug menace, but also of an even more disturbing suspicion of institutional connivance or tolerance toward the source of [the] menace. This we cannot permit,” Guevarra said.

Last year, despite the controversies, Guevarra said government prosecutors secured 77,648 convictions in drug-related cases, compared with the number of dismissals and acquittals, which stood at 17,203.

He said the “vulnerabilities” in the country’s laws on illegal drugs arose because those laws were founded on “assumptions” that allowed drug pushers and traffickers “to operate under the water and to proliferate and expand their operations and influence.”

Those assumptions, he said, also “provided fertile ground for the unscrupulous few to exploit the cracks in our laws for their own selfish desires and ambitions.”

Stricter laws and processes

Guevarra pushed for stricter measures and processes to secure sensitive information during instances of controlled delivery, which he said must be put in place by law enforcement agencies.

That way the information would not be exploited by rogue law enforcers, he said.

A review of the rules on handling and custody of evidence should also be made, Guevarra said.

“Very stringent” requirements adopted by the judiciary hamper efforts by prosecutors handling drug cases, he said.

Wealthy drug suspects who can hire high-caliber lawyers resort to technicalities to escape punishment, Guevarra said.

Guevarra also pushed for the standardization and unification of divergent plea bargaining rules adopted by the judiciary and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

“More than the confusion it generates, our divergent rules on plea bargaining in drug cases reflect our inability to appreciate with one lens the gravity and urgency of the drug problem,” he said.

Minors as drug couriers

Guevarra also called for a study of Republic Act No. 9344, or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006, which exempts children 15 years old or younger from criminal responsibility.

Many drug dealers and syndicates use children as couriers due to the protection granted to them by law, he said.

“As it now stands, the law enacted to protect and care for our children has incentivized their exploitation and engagement into the shady world of drug trafficking and dealing,” Guevarra said.