Amid the Senate probe into the death of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. and the CIDG-8 getting questioned over it, the mayor’s son and alleged drug lord Kerwin Espinosa named the cops who accepted his payola for protection. Frustrated, PNP chief Director General Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa cried at the hearing, adding that he is finding it hard to know who to trust and that he only wanted to reform the PNP. He also said that he would never give up, though, no matter how hard it is.
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But Facebook user Bernard Ong wanted to say this: “Stop drug war. Linis-pulis muna.”
“The War on Drugs is being waged by questionable cops using questionable methods to reach questionable goals,” Ong said.
Ong showed just how “questionable” this war’s goals are, given the discrepancy in the numbers cited by the President himself.
“Previously, his boss (President Rodrigo) Duterte had been coming out with erroneous Drug Matrices and Lists. Duterte targets to eliminate 3-4m drug users. There are only 1.8m users per Dangerous Drugs Board so 1.2m to 2.2m innocent Filipinos are at risk,” Ong added.
He also pointed out the human rights violations committed by the current operations of the police in their campaign against drugs.
“Tokhang, self-incriminating ‘surrender’ forms & extrajudicial killings violate basic constitutional rights. These methods often target the poor & inflict ‘collateral damage’ on innocents,” Ong said.
He expounded on the risks the drug war might create for the Filipinos, given the presence of dirty cops in the force.
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“The PNP chief cannot tell clean from dirty cops. It is very likely that the dirty ones are using their newfound power & immunity from constitutional checks to wage the Drug War for their own ends – eliminating competition, killing off anti-crime advocates, tarring clean officials, avoiding the ‘drug coddler’ label by padding the kills & surrenders with non-users in their assigned areas,” Ong added.
And as for his takeaway from listening to the Senate probe, he said “The gem of truth from the hearings full of lies was this one: Kung walang pulis, walang drugs!”
“Instead of crying, Bato should order an immediate stop to his destructive, indiscriminate & unintelligent drug war. The first order of business is to purge the police force of scalawags on a massive scale. Obosen!” Ong concluded his Facebook post.
Sources: (facebook.com, philstar.com)
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