Bato warns cops reselling seized drugs

PNP Chief Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/LYN RILLON

Philippine National Police Diirector General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa on Wednesday warned policemen who continue to be engaged in drug pushing, reselling drugs seized from law enforcement operations and accepting payoffs from drug syndicates that he would send them to hell.

“I will never forgive those [misdeeds]. If you do good, I will not leave you. I’m with you till the end and I’ll join you anywhere, whether in heaven or in hell. But if you do bad, I will just accompany you to but not join you in hell,” Dela Rosa said in a speech during a visit to the Calabarzon regional police office at Camp Vicente Lim in Calamba City, Laguna.

Slap in the face

Dela Rosa said he considered  a slap in his face the testimony of a witness in Monday’s Senate inquiry about policemen in Antipolo City who murdered a couple with whom they had connived in reselling “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) seized during antidrug operations.

“Please, I appeal to you, if there are those among you who are doing the same, have pity. Stop it. If you don’t I will be the one who will stop you,” he said. “Those who should change must change [now]. This is your chance to save your career and lead a better life. Don’t miss it,” he added.

The PNP chief also reminded policemen fighting illegal drugs to obey the law and respect human rights at all times, adding that it is in compliance with PNP operational procedures and laws protecting the rights of suspects that the lawmen are often faulted.

“Even though we hear denunciations of what we’ve been doing, let us continue our campaign. Just make sure that everything we’re doing is under the law and the respect for human rights,” he said.

Dela Rosa said the government was winning the war on drugs and that law enforcers should keep the momentum because “there is no stopping us.”

However, he said policemen should avoid being careless and getting themselves killed, especially when dealing with armed drug users whose minds, according to him, had “dried up.”

“I don’t want any more policemen getting killed. It should be criminals who should die, not us. Just think, if you die, there will be no one from human rights [agencies and organizations] who will feed your children or send them to school. So, you better stay alive. Just face the case afterward if somebody files a complaint. The important thing is you’re alive,” he said.

Dela Rosa also reiterated President Duterte’s goal in the antidrug campaign.

“What is important is that more and more of our countrymen, especially the youth, are being saved from the evils of drug use and abuse. And many parents are overjoyed that their children are being led away from illegal drugs,” the PNP chief said.

At PNP headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City, about 50 members of the militant urban poor group Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) staged a picket against the rising numbers of alleged vigilante and extrajudicial killings.

The group pointed out that the “primary” targets of the killings are “defenseless urban poor Filipinos.”

“For the Filipino urban poor, we have yet to see the change promised to us. Duterte is accountable for the appalling number of deaths that neither he nor the PNP can definitively call just,” the group said.

“Yet his campaign continues, turning against the impoverished who supported him. We will continue to oppose the war against the senseless killings, especially when there are still alternatives that can be explored,” Kadamay chair Gloria Arellano said.

The protesters carried placards calling for a “humane antidrug drive” and “education and rehabilitation, not persecution” of drug dependents.