Poe has reservations about proposal to arm prosecutors

Sen. Grace Poe. (File photo by CATHY MIRANDA / INQUIRER.net)

Sen. Grace Poe has reservations about the recent Department of Justice (DOJ) proposal to arm state prosecutors for their safety despite the recent spate of violence against them.

“While I condemn the killings of our prosecutors, I have reservations in the suggested solution of arming them,” Poe, vice chair of the Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs, said in a statement on Saturday.

“I have always maintained that increasing the capabilities of our law enforcement institutions in terms of detection, investigation and prosecution remains to be the better option in addressing the rising criminality incidence,” she added.

Recent reports said that two Quezon City prosecutors were killed in a span of one month.

According to the DOJ, 10 prosecutors have been attacked, with nine of them dying, since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016.

On Monday, Prosecutor Madonna Ednaco-Tanyag, who was five months pregnant, was “accidentally” stabbed to death by a robber in Barangay Vasra.

In May, Assistant State Prosecutor Rogelio Velasco was killed in an ambush in Barangay Holy Spirit.

On Saturday, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said he would ask the Duterte administration to buy firearms for prosecutors. Incidentally, the President was also once a prosecutor.

READ: DOJ’s call to arms: Time to fund guns for prosecutors

However, Poe did not consider the incidents enough to necessitate to arming prosecutors.

“We cannot possibly propose to arm every sector that has become the target of criminals as our way forward,” she said. /atm