PNP spokesperson Chief Supt. John Bulalacao INQUIRER.net / NOY MORCOSO
The Philippine National Police (PNP) has already completed preparing 80 percent of the case files concerning the government drug war ordered to be submitted before the Supreme Court (SC), its spokesperson said Thursday.
“I was informed by the DIDM [Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management] nasa 80 percent na ang compliance nila (their compliance is already at 80 percent),” PNP spokesperson Chief Supt. John Bulalacao said in a press briefing at Camp Crame in Quezon City.
Bulalacao said that the PNP has submitted the documents to the Office of the Solicitor General, who then would submit it to the Supreme Court.
He said that the remaining 20 percent has yet to be submitted by police units from far-flung areas.
The Supreme Court on April 3 ordered the Solicitor General and the PNP to submit the case files of the close to 4,000 drug suspects killed in police operations from July 2016 to November 2017.
The PNP has said that the Solicitor General has already asked the High Court for an extension but did not say for how long the extension would be.
In its resolution, the Supreme Court questioned the thousands of killings under the campaign, 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 every day.
“This Court wants to know why so many deaths happened as expressly reported [in the Yearend 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. /jpv
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