Regardless of one’s skepticism about the long term benefits of a planned Senate inquiry into the extrajudicial killings in Cebu, it is hoped that the hearings will result in legislation that will require greater accountability and transparency from the police in their operations.
As to what measures may be set up to effect such accountability, that is for the lawmakers, the police and other law enforcement agencies tasked to carry out such operations and the public to conceptualize and agree on.
As it is, President Rodrigo Duterte’s blanket authority given to law enforcers in the war on drugs had resulted not only in a rising death toll but an increasing incidence of abuses committed against drug suspects.
The recent case of one PO1 Eduardo Valencia assigned in Sampaloc, Manila, who stands accused of raping the daughter of a couple accused of drug dealing is one such notorious example of cop abuse.
That Valencia vehemently denied the allegations while admitting that such incidents have become the norm for anti-drug operations is both appalling and condemnable.
Yet that cop’s alleged behavior is but a mere extension of President Duterte’s own inflammatory rhetoric that has characterized his speeches and his administration’s war not only on illegal drugs but on the country’s communist insurgency.
The President was actually quoted telling soldiers to fire on the privates of New People’s Army (NPA) Amazons so they won’t bear any more children though he clarified later on that it was an insult and not an actual order to do so.
But whatever words the President may or may not have been lost among the troops and such goading would likely seep over to law enforcers who have not only been given better salaries but were given practically free rein to do what they can to deal with the drug menace, including deadly force.
Hence, the rising death toll including the deaths of drug suspects in Barangay Malubog, Cebu City, last Oct. 4 which even led to an admission by Chief Supt. Debold Sinas, Police Regional Office (PRO-7) chief, that some policemen are moonlighting as hitmen for some drug syndicates even if they’re being paid better.
With each day reporting another killing or two and no one being held accountable for it, what would dissuade police officers from resorting to extralegal measures including abuses against drug suspects and any criminal suspect for that matter?
That’s something the Senate committee on public order should find answers for should they decide on holding that hearing in Cebu.
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