Local business leaders welcomed the move of Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa to withdraw his men from the government’s campaign against illegal drugs and instead focus on internal cleansing.
The leaders said this initiative may even improve the perception of investors and traders of the peace and order situation in the country.
“We all know the PNP has faced credibility problems for decades. We cannot have peace and prosperity with a flawed PNP,” Cebu Business Club (CBC) president Gordon Alan Joseph said in a text message to Cebu Daily News.
The Duterte administration has long been criticized for its bloody drive against illegal drugs, already claiming the lives of more than 7,000 suspected drug lords and pushers across the country to date.
Others have found that President Rodrigo Duterte’s passion to rid the Philippines of the drug menace had emboldened individuals to take matters into their own hands as reflected in the number of killings perpetrated by unidentified assailants in the last six months.
Dela Rosa’s decision to withdraw police involvement in the campaign versus illegal drugs came in the midst a series of investigations on the death of South Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo in the hands of PNP personnel while inside the police headquarters, Camp Crame, hours after he was abducted from his home in Angeles City last October.
The trader’s death was believed to have been part of a kidnap-extortion case carried out by a big syndicate operating within the country’s police force.
Amid all this, Joseph stressed that the PNP should be part of the solution and not be a major cause of the problem.
For Teresa Chan, past president of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), a temporary halt in the war against illegal drugs due to internal cleansing of the PNP will “be good for the country.”
“Any war on criminality will not succeed if those who are supposed to implement them are involved in crimes themselves. It is a good move,” she said.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) was expected to take full control of the administration’s drive against illegal drugs in the absence of police in the campaign.
Donato Busa, immediate past president of the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), said the Duterte administration was doing the right thing in initiating an internal cleanse of the PNP.
“Tokhang (the PNP’s door-to-door anti-illegal drugs campaign) has made Frankenstein in some of the police. Looking inward is the best thing to consolidate the campaign,” said Busa.
He added that the “scalawags” must be booted out and that President Duterte is going in the right direction for checking on his men.
MCCI current president Glenn Soco, meanwhile, said the police withdrawal from the anti-drug campaign to focus on cleaning their own ranks will not have any negative effect on business.
“In business, we also do our own internal cleansing and re-align our programs to meet our objectives,” he said.
Soco added that this move only shows that the PNP is doing its job and that his business organization supports it.
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