De Lima wants Senate to investigate Reuters report

Senator Leila De Lima
INQUIRER/ MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

Senator Leila de Lima is urging the Senate leadership to investigate a Reuters’ special report claiming that cops are using hospitals to conceal incidents of extrajudicial killings in the drug war.

From her detention at the Philippine National Police (PNP) Custodial Center, De Lima on Thursday filed Senate Resolution no. 421 directing the committee on public order and dangerous drugs to conduct a probe in aid of legislation on the alleged malpractices of police officers.

The resolution also directs the Senate to come up with “tighter mechanisms of accountability of police officers and l instituting corrective legislative measures to improve the system of crime detection and investigation.”

In June, Reuters reported that cops were sending bodies of suspected drug addicts and pushers to destroy to evidence at crime scenes.

It said police have been “sending victims to hospitals to avoid crime scene investigations and media attention that might show they were executing drug suspects.”

When asked for an opinion during a television interview on ABS-CBN News Channel, PNP chief Dir. Gen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa reasoned that police officers were not medically qualified to determine whether a victim was dead or alive so the victim would be sent to a hospital.

READ: Palace mum on report PNP using hospitals to conceal drug killings

The senator pointed out that the alleged “disreputable” acts of the cops are violations of the PNP’s operational procedures in the PNP handbook.

“These alleged disreputable behaviors of police officers may be indicative of abuses committed contrary to the prescribed Operations Procedures in the PNP handbook, which states under Rules 7.1 and 7.4 that ‘the excessive use of force during police operartion is prohibited…’ and ‘when suspect is violent or threatening, and that less physical measures have been tried and deemed inappropriate, a more extreme, but non-deadly measure can be used such as baton/truncheon, pepper spray, stun gun, and other nonlethal weapon to bring the suspect under control, or effect an arrest,'” De Lima said.

Revelations made in the Reuters report, according to De Lima, show a “distressing” anomaly in the criminal justice system as police themselves cover up heinous abuses.

“The Reuters special report points to a distressing yet reparable anomaly in the current criminal justice system where the demands of truth and justice, which include the demand for holding public officers accountable, are being disregarded and completely undermined by an apparent criminal enterprise within the ranks of the PNP, which maliciously and systematically works to cover up heinous abuses being committed by its members,” De Lima said.

“It is imperative to investigate these allegation against certain members of the PNP to determine the veracity thereof, towards the end of ensuring that lapses and willfully malicious acts, which enable and perpetuate the commission of abuses and outright crimes during and after police operations, are addressed and prevented from being committed with impunity,” she said.

De Lima said the Senate should review the existing legislation and policies covering the operations of the PNP.

“In light of these serious claims and allegation, the Senate should review existing legislation and policies, and recommend amendments to existing procedures on arrest, search and seizure, and the current crime scene processing procedures of the PNP to ensure that the discretion and duties of the police officers have been duly exercises, that the rights of suspects or persons subject of law enforcement operations have been observed, and the requisites of forensic evidence and crime scene processing have been complied with,” De Lima said. JE/rga