QCPD drug tests, surveys meant to draw up hit list?

Quezon City policemen conduct a survey of household occupants on Ilang Ilang, Payatas A, on Wednesday.—GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

“Our worry is when someone tests positive, they would be included in the drug list and might later be killed. ”

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) aired this concern as it questioned the house-to-house tests and “surveys” being conducted by the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) to identify drug users in poor communities.

The CHR noted possible violations of the residents’ right to privacy and their right to be presumed innocent.

“The policy should be considered for further study before being fully implemented,” CHR chair Jose Luis Martin Gascon said on Thursday. “It is a kind of intervention that, when properly applied, might be useful.”

“While the commission recognizes the efforts of the law enforcement agents in curbing the deleterious effects of dangerous drugs, they must be constantly mindful of the reasonable limits of their authority. It is not unlikely that in their clear intent to purge society of its lawless elements, they must be knowingly or unknowingly transgressing the protected rights of the Filipino citizens,” he said.

TRO petition readied

Meanwhile, the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) is preparing a petition to be filed in court next week to stop the QCPD’s “draconian, fascist and Orwellian” initiative.

“The NUPL asserts that this repressive Philippine National Police operation violates basic constitutional rights of persons and is contrary to law,” the group said in a statement on Friday.

It said it would seek a temporary restraining order on the surveys and drug tests, which were earlier reported in Barangay Payatas, Quezon City.

The QCPD earlier drew flak when it was confirmed that members of its Batasan station knocked on several houses in Payatas to administer on-the-spot drug tests on some household members.

On Wednesday, the QCPD director, Chief Supt. Guillermo Eleazar, said they would stop the house-to-house drug tests in Payatas and would instead encourage barangay officials to just “invite” residents to undergo testing.

Eleazar pointed out that it was the barangay officials and the residents themselves who asked the police to bring test kits to their neighborhoods.

But NUPL on Friday said it had received reports that the QCPD continued to conduct surveys in some slum areas in the city. Like the drug tests, such surveys create the same “terror effect” on the community, the group said.

“The police are not qualified, trained, skilled or authorized to conduct drug testing,” NUPL secretary general Edre Olalia stressed.

The Inquirer on Friday went to a slum area in Barangay South Triangle, where residents confirmed that policemen spoke with members of at least five households the day before. The uniformed officers inquired about the number of occupants per home and asked some residents to fill out a form with the names of their family members, they said.