70 cops on NCRPO list of bad eggs

NCRPO chief Director Oscar Albayalde (right) —NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

The National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) is currently keeping a watch list of 70 officers being investigated for misconduct, abuse of authority or criminal activities like drug dealing and extortion.

The NCRPO chief, Director Oscar Albayalde, made the disclosure following the recent arrests of several Metro Manila policemen for various offenses.

In a Camp Crame briefing on Wednesday, Albayalde said “there will be no mercy for these people who are using drugs and those selling drugs especially if these are uniformed personnel… They are to be dismissed from the service. However, they will still undergo due process.”

“Internal cleansing is not necessarily new, but we really intensified it now,” the director added in an interview. “Over the years, internal cleansing has been neglected—some scallywags were tolerated, others simply transferred then brought back after a few months. Now, we will suspend or dismiss them from the service.”

He named three officers — PO2 Omar Malinao and PO1 Adrian Patrick Pinalas of the Manila Police District (MPD); and PO1 Mark Gil Justo from Quezon City — who had been relieved of their posts to face investigation.

Manila teen’s slay

Malinao, a member of the MPD’s Smokey Mountain precinct, is considered one of three persons of interest in the fatal shooting of a 13-year-old boy on March 2 at the Vitas slaughter house in Tondo, Manila.

“The allegation of Malinao is he fired a warning shot,” Albayalde said. “But then apparently he changed his statement, claiming he tripped and his gun accidentally went off. So we do not know which is true. We’re still investigating the case to find out what really happened and determine the possible culpability, liability of the policeman.”

Malinao and two other policemen assigned at the slaughterhouse had undergone paraffin testing and surrendered their guns for ballistics examination, he added.

Justo, another MPD member, is also in hot water for allegedly mauling a teenager on Feb. 22 in Barangay Dulong Bayan II, San Mateo, Rizal.

Meanwhile, Pinalas, a member of the QCPD’s mobile force battalion, was arrested on Wednesday in a buy-bust operation on Libya Extension, Barangay Nangka, Marikina City.

Last month, the NCRPO sacked 18 officers in three cities for sleeping and drinking on the job, with their respective city police chiefs also relieved for command responsibility. —With reports from Jeannette I. Andrade and Matthew Reysio-Cruz