PNP dispels insinuations that drug deaths are gov’t-sanctioned

PNP spokesperson Chief Supt. John Bulalacao INQUIRER.net / NOY MORCOSO

The Philippine National Police (PNP) on Thursday dispelled the Supreme Court’s allegation that all the killings under the anti-drug campaign may be sanctioned by the government itself.

PNP spokesman Chief Supt. John Bulalacao maintained that the anti-drug campaign is “constitutional, legal and is implemented in the interest of public safety” and the presumption of regularity sides with authorities until disproven in court.

“All allegations are part of the healthy democracy that the country has,” Bulalacao said in a statement.

“The presumption of regularity remains with the law enforcers and unless proven otherwise in the court of law,” he added.

The SC, in a resolution released Tuesday, denied the Office of Solicitor General’s appeal for the Court to rescind its Dec. 5, 2017 order requiring the PNP to submit all its reports on the killings of drug suspects during the implementation of “Oplan Tokhang” from July 1, 2016 to Nov. 30, 2017.

The High Court said that the killings under the anti-illegal drug campaign may possibly be state-sponsored because the death toll is listed among the government’s accomplishments in the Duterte administration’s 2017 Year-end Report.

“The government’s inclusion of these deaths among its other accomplishments may lead to the interference that these are state-sponsored killings,” the SC said.

The SC questioned the thousands of deaths under the war on drugs, citing the 20,322 deaths—3,967 drug personalities in anti-drug operations and 16,355 homicide cases under investigation—recorded from July 1, 2016 to Sept. 27, 2017 or an average of 39.46 deaths everyday.

“This Court wants to know why so many deaths happened as expressly reported [in the Year-end Report],” the SC added.

The tribunal also found the Solicitor General’s “generic and unsubstantiated refusal” to submit information “unacceptable,” noting that documents should have had been produced in the first place as part of the police’s standard operating procedures.

Bulalacao, however, said that the attention should not only be focused on the deaths of suspected drug criminals but also on the more than 1.3 million surrenderees, 120,000 arrested persons and the law enforcers who have died during these police operations.

“If the claims on EJK are true, then these surrenderers and arrested suspects should not be alive as well,” he said. /jpv

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