Bato to Albayalde: Retain unit that catches rogue cops

Retiring Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Dir. Gen. Ronald Dela Rosa is urging his successor Dir. Oscar Albayalde to retain the Counter-Intelligence Task Force (CITF), a unit that has played a crucial role in the campaign to weed-out rogue and erring policemen.

Dela Rosa said the CITF has been “very effective” in the PNP’s internal cleansing program and even described the task force as one of the units that gave him the most “highest moments” for capturing erring policemen.

“I would insist that he should maintain this unit. This has been very effective in our internal cleansing program,” Dela Rosa told reporters Wednesday night during his farewell visit to police units.

“Without CITF mahihirapan tayo hulihin itong mga sira-ulong pulis, itong mga scalawag na pulis,” he added. (Without CITF, we will have a hard time to go after these abusive policemen, these scalawag policemen)

In his speech at the CITF headquarters, Dela Rosa bared that the unit had also drawn the ire of Albayalde as the head of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO).

Dela Rosa said this was because ground commanders are often not informed of the CITF’s operations beforehand.

“So minsan yung coordination na ginagawa nila (CITF) is instead of before, ginagawa nila after the operations na lang dahil yun nga, baka mag leak, mag negative naman yung operations,” Dela Rosa told reporters when asked to clarify the issue. (Sometimes the coordination the CITF does is instead of before, they do it after the operations because the operation may leak and it may be botched.)

“Ang dating sa kanila nito medyo para bang pwede kang magcoordinate sa akin, hindi ko naman i-lileak operations niyo dapat sinabi niyo sa akin. Parang ganun ba. Konting tampuhan lang which is minor yan sa amin,” he added. (For the ground commanders you can coordinate with me, I would not leak the operations, you should have told me. That’s just a small misunderstanding and a minor issue for us.)

Dela Rosa said the issue was later clarified.

The CITF is a task force formed last year aimed to run after rogue and errant policemen. It is composed of 77 members of the Special Action Force headed by Sr. Supt. Jose Chiquito Malayo.

According to PNP spokesperson Chief Supt. John Bulalacao, from Feb. 7, 2017 to March 2, 2018, the CITF received a total of 10,246 complaints via SMS and phone calls. Of these, 1,745 were processed and acted upon by CITF thru discreet investigation, case build-up, validation, and direct police intervention.

Dela Rosa is set to turn over his position to Albayalde on Thursday in a ceremony at Camp Crame in Quezon City.     /muf