New Davao cop chief vows to cleanse ranks, pursue war vs crime

DAVAO CITY—The new city police chief handpicked early this year by Mayor and incoming President Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to implement the policies of the next administration in so far as weeding out scalawags and combating criminality are concerned.

“We must effect change first because many depend on us. We should never lose track of our vision,” Senior Supt. Michael John Dubria, who replaced his mistah in the Philippine Military Academy Class 1991, Senior Supt. Vicente Danao, said on Friday.

“We must cleanse our ranks (of) those who have gone astray,” added Dubria, who was assigned as deputy director for operations of the Southern Mindanao police before taking on the role of city police director.

Dubria, a native of the city, also said the anticriminality campaign laid out by Duterte as mayor of the city would be continued.

Danao, in his farewell speech to the men and women of the Davao City Police Office, recounted how he had implemented house cleaning under Duterte’s supervision.

He said four policemen had been dismissed from service because of their involvement in illegal drugs.

Danao said  the DCPO did not put distinction between civilian and uniformed criminals, adding that three policemen from outside Southern Mindanao had been killed due to drug-related activities.

“Three were neutralized in Davao when they fought it out,” he said.

Danao also said the record would bear him out on the success of the anticriminality campaign here for the past two years and a half, with arrests numbering a few thousands.

Dubria said under his term, which will run for two years, a similar campaign should be expected.

He said there was no reason for law enforcers to go astray and that criminals had no place in the city.

Dubria said that with Duterte’s pledge to double their salary, policemen should exert more effort to combat criminality.

“Higher pay for the police comes with a price. Let us make ourselves more deserving,” he said./rga