Koko, Bato clash over ‘breakdown’ of security

MANILA, Philippines - Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III has urged Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa to immediately address the spate of violent crimes that have been occurring across the country.

Speaking about President Duterte’s accomplishments in his first year in office, Pimentel said over the weekend that one area that needs improvement is the maintenance of peace and order.

 While acknowledging that crime rate has gone down since Dela Rosa assumed as PNP chief, Pimentel said crimes – particularly murder – continue to occur all over the country.

 With some of the cases involving local officials and businessmen, Pimentel said there seemed to be a breakdown in the country’s peace and order situation.

Reacting to Pimentel’s statement, Dela Rosa said the peace and order in the country has improved under the Duterte government.

“We can see the results of our work that crimes has significantly gone down compared to previous administrations,” Dela Rosa said, adding they are continuously working to address criminality in the country.

The PNP chief said he has yet to know the basis of Pimentel’s claim that “there seemed to be a breakdown in the peace and order situation.”

Although there have been scalawags in the service who put the police force in a bad light, Dela Rosa said they are continuously weeding out these corrupt officers through the PNP’s internal cleansing process.

 “The ball is in the hands of the chief PNP. He should solve these cases and bring down the crime rate. General crimes are down but in the news reports, I see a lot of assassinations, guns for hire and the like. These should be solved by the PNP,” Pimentel said.

He said authorities should not let criminals get away with every offense they commit against the state and individuals.

 The Duterte administration has been accused of coddling police officers who are allegedly engaged in extrajudicial killings, particularly of drug suspects.

 Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV has claimed that a Philippine death squad allegedly composed of active policemen, most of whom belong to the PNP Academy Batch 1996, has been created by Duterte to execute drug personalities. 

Citing alleged confessions by some alleged squad members, Trillanes said the policemen are paid to do the killings.

 Pimentel said such allegations must be supported by concrete evidence and the PNP must solved all these killings and deter crimes. – With Emmanuel Tupas