When cops do drugs

The shooting and arrest of PO1 Ian Patrick Nillas Carvellida at a drug den in Pinamungajan town over the weekend simply underscored one of the reasons why Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has been leading the surveys in the presidential race.

Carvellida was caught sniffing shabu in a drug den, which is the home of suspected drug dealer Allan Salazar, who was also caught.

Two cops who were with Carvellida avoided arrest during the raid conducted by the Provincial Intelligence Branch of the Cebu provincial police.

Rather than meekly surrender, the 29-year-old Carvellida, who was likely high at the time, chose to shoot the police officers, and he got shot in the right leg for his trouble.

The raiding policemen didn’t know that Carvellida, who was in civilian attire at the time, was also a police officer assigned at Pinamungajan town until he admitted it to them.

While the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) warned that Carvellida’s fate also awaits those police officers who engage in the illegal drug trade, it seems as if this warning will fall on deaf ears.

If anything, it may be laughed off. As Salazar recounted to the police, Carvellida didn’t even need to assure him of protection before he gave him his shabu fix. Some policemen now resort to using their badges to extort drugs.

There were reports that the recruitment of cops by drug syndicates into their illegal trade starts as early as the time they enter the police force. As in every activity whether aboveboard or illicit, starting them young ensures continuity especially if it’s profitable.

An internal investigation by the National Police Commission (Napolcom) or any oversight committee would have provided hard facts, but a cursory recollection of news reports may present a small, yet accurate glimpse of how deeply compromised the ranks of police are in terms of drug dealing cops.

Any warning of severe penalties by police higher-ups like Senior Supt. Clifford Gairanod, CPPO chief, would go unheeded unless there are dogged efforts to cleanse the ranks.

While the illegal drug menace has been in existence for decades now, the severity of the problem has either been swept under the rug and has been overtaken by other pressing issues like corruption in government, economic slowdown and insurgency.

But when you learn of reports about P26.5 million worth of drugs being shipped from Cebu to neighboring Bohol province and P1.2 million worth of drugs seized by police a day after from a drug den in Barangay Camputhaw in Cebu City, you realize the menace is too serious to dismiss.

And while the police and other law enforcement agencies have managed to do their job so far, local officials have been too busy with their own agenda to bother doing something a lot more concrete about it.