Gordon proposes police courts to handle police abuse cases

MANILA, Philippines — Senator Richard Gordon is seeking the passage of a bill that would establish police courts to handle the cases of Philippine National Police (PNP) members facing civil or criminal raps.

“[This is] in the interest of speedy justice and to prevent us losing the trust and confidence [of the public] and to prevent also the policemen from hiding within the gargantuan bureaucracy of the courts as well as the police system,” Gordon said during Thursday’s hearing of the Senate justice panel, which he chairs.

“I would like to emphasize that we are not accusing the whole rank and file of 200,000 plus police force. There are just a few of them but they’re too many, few of them who do dastardly act,” he said.

The hearing tackled the recent spate of killings in the country as well as Senate Bill No. 1828 or the proposed Police Courts Act of 2020, which was filed by Gordon.

“Should the police use their guns against innocent civilians or, should they summarily execute people, they must be punished and removed from service with dispatch, without sacrificing due process, to preserve the trust of the people in its government,” the bill’s explanatory note read.

“This bill seeks to shield the citizenry from the use of the police of unbridled power, leading to violation of constitutional rights, by providing a special court that will render speedy and impartial trial of all complaints against the police in the performance of their duties,” it added.

Under the bill, the Supreme Court will create a special court designated as the Police Law Enforcement Court among existing Regional Trial Courts, which will “handle all civil and criminal cases involving allegations of abuse of authority whether in or off duty of the members of the Philippine National Police.”

Such civil and criminal cases can include those “arising out of the violation of a member of the Philippine National Police of its PNP operational procedures and other police protocols designed to protect the rights of the accused.”

If the bill is enacted, the Supreme Court will likewise be required to designate an appellate police court from among the divisions of the Court of Appeals to handle all appeals coming from the Police Courts.

“The Supreme Court can now designate a particular court in every province to have additional duties to handle police cases so when people try to find out where the cases are, they can find out where a policeman is being tried,” Gordon said during the hearing.

“There’s administrative cases filed against policemen and that goes at a very slow pace… Dahil kapag pulis na ang involved, hindi na nalilitis yung kaso at natatagalan, although ang sinasabi bumibilis na raw,” he added.

Retired Associate Justice Magdangal de Leon of the Court of Appeals expressed support for the bill.

He also agreed with Gordon that the bill would allow for an easier public monitoring of cases involving police abuses.

“With the special court for offenses committed by policemen, madaling ma-trace. Easy to trace the status of the case. You know which courts are trying these policemen who violate the Constitution and the law,” said De Leon, who was virtually present during the hearing.

“Policemen investigating their peers, mga kabaro nila, it’s very difficult for them to do that, e kung ang maglilitis sa mga pulis ang korte na…then the case will be proceeding faster,” he also said.

The PNP, for its part, said it continues to monitor pending cases involving police officers.

“It has been one of the best practices of CIDG (Criminal Investigation and Detection Group) and other PNP units to have a case monitoring for every filed case in court,” Police Maj. Gen. Albert Ignatius Ferro, CIDG director, told the committee.

Further, he said the PNP has established a counter-intelligence unit to “look into scalawags.”

“The PNP leadership does not tolerate those who are remiss in their duty. We believe we can’t gain the trust of the public if we are remiss of our duty,” Ferro added.

EDV