A senator found it “absolutely absurd” for a police official to say that cops do not need body cameras in their anti-drug operations because they have God as their “camera.”
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said fear of God alone was not enough to prevent cops from carrying out killings in the name of the government’s so-called drug war.
“It is absolutely absurd to suggest that the fear of divine retribution in the afterlife would be more effective than body cameras in addressing police impunity and holding dirty cops accountable for their crimes during our life here on Earth,” Gatchalian said in statement on Friday.
Philippine National Police (PNP) Drug Enforcement Group (DEG) Director Chief Supt. Joseph Adnol recently said there was no need for cops to wear body cameras to prove that they are not engaging in questionable drug operations.
“For me, there really is no need for a body cam, our camera as policemen is God, ‘yun ang pinaka-camera natin na tinitingnan tayo,” Adnol told reporters.
Gatchalian said he staunchly supports President Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs, but is critical of the PNP’s “heavy-handed approach” in neutralizing drug personalities.
Many senators urged the PNP to use body cameras to ensure that no extrajudicial killings would happen in drug operations.
At the height of outrage over the killing of 17-year-old Kian Loyd delos Santos during an alleged anti-illegal drug operation, Gatchalian filed a bill to make the use of body cameras part of the standard operating procedure of law enforcement authorities.
“Instead of playing the ‘he said, she said’ game, the National Police Commission and the courts will be armed with concrete evidence to fire police scalawags and send them straight to Bilibid,” Gatchalian said.
“The body camera policy will separate the good cops from the bad, and the people will be able to sleep easier at night, knowing that there is an efficient system in place to hold bad cops accountable for abusing their authority,” he also said. /kga