MANILA, Philippines — Opposition Sen. Leila de Lima on Friday said she prays that the Philippine National Police (PNP) be “exorcised of its demons” in the wake of the “ninja cops” controversy now hounding the agency.
De Lima also reacted to Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) chief Aaron Aquino’s admission that PNP chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde had asked him not to implement the dismissal order against the 13 Pampanga policemen allegedly involved in the stashing of seized shabu and accepting bribes following an irregular anti-illegal drugs operation in 2013. The Senate is now investigating this issue.
The detained senator said the moral lesson from this is that “one cannot and should not be wavering if he or she has or knows the truth.”
READ: Albayalde takes more heat as PDEA chief changes tune
De Lima nonetheless prayed for Aquino’s strength and for the safety of former PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) chief and now Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, as well as for Albayalde and for the PNP.
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She said the institution should be ridded of “misguided elements [who] summarily execute hapless drug suspects and other malpractices or nefarious activities such as ‘agaw bato,’ planting of evidence, extortion, torture and CIDG’s shameless cooking up of dubious charges against the opposition and other critics in pursuit of this regime’s agenda to stifle dissent.”
“May the good men and women in that institution flourish and prevail always over the rotten eggs. I wish the same thing for PDEA, BuCor (Bureau of Corrections) and NBI (National Bureau of Investigation),” De Lima said.
It was Magalong who first said that Albayalde intervened in the case of the 13 cops who are his subordinates when he was chief of the Pampanga PNP. In 2017, the erring cops were slapped with a one-rank demotion, instead of the original order to have them dismissed from the PNP. But in light of the Senate probe, they were put on floating status.
Albayalde, who is retiring on November 8, had denied protecting the cops and has vowed to refile the criminal and administrative cases against the police officers if needed. /muf
READ: Lacson to Albayalde: Reopen ‘ninja cops’ case, prove you’re not protecting