Bulacan drug war toll now 32

Policemen document illegal drug paraphernalia and other belongings recovered from slain suspects in Marilao town in Bulacan province. —PHOTO COURTESY OF MARILAO PNP

CITY OF MALOLOS — Eleven more suspects were killed as a 24-hour drug operation in Bulacan province ended on Tuesday night, bringing the number of fatalities to 32.

It was the most number of drug personalities slain in a day in what Senior Supt. Romeo Caramat Jr., provincial police director, described as “uncontrollable situations” in operations that have mostly turned into kill or be killed situations.

The police operations, however, have drawn support from lawyers in Bulacan.

“It’s better to see 20 drug addicts dead than see 20 innocent women or children raped and killed,” said lawyer Jose de la Rama, Central Luzon governor of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP).

“The policemen are just doing their job. It means the drug problem is so wide in scope and so many dependents are still using [narcotics] despite the government initiative to curtail it. The police must be serious in their drug operation in the province and the officers must be commended for doing their job,” said De la Rama, also the IBP Bulacan chapter president.

Lawyer Juvic Degala said the result of the operation was unprecedented in the history of Bulacan.

“Until proven otherwise, the police officers are presumed to have performed their duties regularly,” he said.

Bulacan Rep. Jonathan Sy-Alvarado said: “The deaths which occurred in a span of one day are alarming. I appeal to people still involved in illegal drugs to stop these activities and surrender peacefully.”

As of Wednesday, families of the slain suspects, most of them identified only by their aliases or first names, had not claimed their bodies, police said.

But a complaint arose about missing motorcycles, pieces of jewelry and cash when the police searched the house of Victoria de la Cruz and her live-in partner, Alvin Marquez, who were among those killed in a police operation in the City of Malolos.

The complaint, however, was aired over social media. “If that were true, the complaint should be filed formally [with the police] and not [posted] on Facebook,” said Danilo Clavio, village chief of Atlag in Malolos.

Clavio said De la Cruz and Marquez were on the Atlag drug watch list.

Caramat said the killing of 32 drug suspects and the arrest of 109 others were the results of 67 police operations in 21 towns and three cities of the province.

Police seized 359 plastic sachets of suspected “shabu” (crystal meth) weighing 235.07 grams, and 765 grams of dried marijuana leaves.

Police recovered two grenades and 33 assorted guns from the suspects.

Records from the Bulacan police showed that 602 drug suspects had been killed from July 1, 2016, to May 31 this year.

Responding to concerns over the high number of deaths in antidrug operations, Caramat said the police were ready for any investigation.

“I believe in the legality of our operations and I believe our police operatives are strictly following … procedures and, of course, observing human rights of the victims.  On our part we know that we have done nothing wrong but, of course, there are some sectors that will not believe us.  We are open [to] any investigation,” he said in a press conference on Wednesday at the Philippine National Police headquarters in Camp Crame.

“All we can say is that we don’t have any control of the situation. As much as possible, we wanted to remove those elements that would lead us into bloody encounters … but, as I’ve said, we don’t have control of the situation.”

In conducting “one time, big time” operations, the PNP, he said, went for “shock and awe” through superiority in strength, numbers and arms as well as the element of surprise to eliminate factors that could lead to armed encounters with drug suspects.

Caramat later told the Inquirer that most drug suspects had developed the mentality of never surrendering.

“The effect of illegal drugs on them is that they would rather die than be caught or arrested. These are notorious [drug personalities]. When we say notorious, they will fight. They are stubborn and incorrigible already,” he said.