Bato: No ‘secret cells’ in other police stations

INTO THE LIGHT A woman detained in the secret jail of a Tondo police station squats with other drug suspects on the floor of a narrow cell found by a team from the Commission on Human Rights behind a wooden shelf (see sketch, inset). About a dozen men and women were found huddled inside on Thursday night. RAFFY LERMA

After ordering an audit of detention facilities the Philippine National Police (PNP) manages, PNP chief Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa said there are no existing “secret cells” in police stations nationwide except the one in Manila.

“So far, all the regional directors reported to me that there are no existing secret detention facilities being maintained by their respective subordinate units,” Dela Rosa told reporters in an interview at the multi-purpose center in Camp Crame on Thursday.

Dela Rosa led the oath-taking ceremony of six policemen who were promoted as star-rank officers.

In an interview in Lipa City, Batangas, the police chief told the media that he ordered all police regional directors to do an inventory to ensure that there are no secret cells.

This came after the discovery of a secret cell inside Manila Police District’s Raxabago Station in Tondo, Manila during an inspection made by the Commission on Human Rights last April 28.

Authorities found inmates inside a dark, narrow space behind a bookshelf at the said police station. Some inmates claimed that they were being used by anti-drug cops as milking cows, asking money from them in exchange for their release.

READ: Inside secret cell: ‘You’re like pigs’

“We will make sure that there will be no more secret cells in the Philippines because that is against the law,” Dela Rosa said.

The police chief recently came under fire for indirectly defending his men and making excuses for the abuses they committed, saying that the lack of space in the station’s cell prompted the cops to transfer them to the alleged “secret cell.”

READ: Bato: No problem if detainees weren’t tortured in ‘secret cell’

Raxabago station commander, Supt. Robert Domingo, and the members of the station’s Drug Enforcement Unit have since been relieved. IDL/rga