Drilon bothered by Bato’s defense of cops in charge of secret jail

Senate President Franklin Drilon. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / JOAN BONDOC

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon yesterday took to task Philippine National Police chief, Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, for defending policemen who locked up a dozen drug suspects inside a cramped, secret jail in Manila.

Drilon said Dela Rosa’s cavalier attitude in dealing with the discovery of the clandestine cell would only fuel insinuations that the PNP sanctioned the impunity that has characterized President Duterte’s drug war.

“I do not see how Dela Rosa can say that his cops did nothing wrong when the Constitution and the law [are] clear that having a secret detention is illegal,” he said in a statement.

Drilon, a former justice secretary, added that the head of the 160,000-strong force should be “disturbed” about the mounting allegations of human rights violations against police personnel tasked to enforce the President’s take-no-prisoner strategy against illegal drugs.

“I am alarmed by this culture of impunity among our policemen. Not a single police officer has been held criminally liable in the death of thousands of the casualties of the campaign against drugs,” he said.

Last week, Commission on Human Rights officials were shocked to find 12 men and women detained in a cell hidden behind a bookshelf at a police station in Tondo.

Dela Rosa, however, said he saw nothing wrong in the actions of his subordinates if they did not torture or extort money from the detainees as some of them had claimed.