Administration Senator Bato de la Rosa on Sunday urged Malacanang to provide a clearer signal to law enforcement agencies on President Marcos’s policy direction in their mandate to fight illegal drugs and terrorism.
A former National Police Chief-turned-lawmaker, De la Rosa is facing an inquiry by the International Criminal Court for his stewardship of the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs from 2016- to 2019.
He acknowledged a certain “sense of hesitancy” among law enforcement agencies owing to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s omission of his marching order against drugs and terrorism during his State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) last July 25.
At the same time, De la Rosa said in a radio interview on Sunday that he and ex-President Rodrigo Duterte, under whom he served as PNP chief in the latter’s first three years in power, were placed high on the hit list of illegal drug syndicates, saying: “I was the number 2 next to Duterte.”
Still, the senator indicated they are not giving up the fight against illegal drugs, stressing that the Philippine National Police should “enforce the law.”
Moreover, the senator stressed. that the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the National Police Commission (Napolcom) “must ensure” that the so-called ‘ninja cops’ do not get back to the service, warning that they were “just waiting” for Duterte to leave office, as the narco politicians “are still around.” Thus, he explained, it is important that both the law enforcers and these drug personalities get a clear signal that President Marcos is determined to go after the latter.
Law enforcers, he said, also need an implicit assurance that if they are harassed with needless or unjustified cases in the conduct of the drug campaign, they will not be hung out to dry, or be simply left to their own devices.
Meanwhile, Dela Rosa defended his renewed advocacy for a bill imposing the death penalty on big-time drug traffickers, saying this is one good way of helping prevent the resurgent tide of illicit drugs.
He disputed criticism that the bill is anti-poo, saying it specifically mandates the death penalty only on big-time drug traffickers, and not small-time dealers or pushers.
The three-year campaign under Duterte had been criticized for putting netting a much bigger number of alleged drug personalities from the ranks of the urban poor communities, resulting in several high-profile cases that showed rogue policemen shooting down hapless civilians and then claiming they are drug dealers.
Three Caloocan cops have been convicted for the murder of student Kean de los Santos in 2017. The Philippine government has insisted that such conviction, as well as the ongoing investigations into hundreds of cases filed by families of alleged injustice in the anti-drugs campaign, show that the Philippine judicial system is functioning and there is no need for the ICC to come in.