Leila wants probe on use of hospitals to conceal EJKs

MANILA, Philippines -  Sen. Leila de Lima called for an inquiry into reports that anti-narcotics police were using hospitals to conceal incidents of extrajudicial killings.

In filing Senate Resolution 421 yesterday, De Lima cited a June 29 report from Reuters describing how some policemen were sending corpses to hospitals to destroy evidence at crime scenes and hide the fact that they were executing drug suspects.

In her resolution, De Lima said the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs should conduct the investigation into the report.

On July 3, Reuters reported that Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chairman of the committee on public order and dangerous drugs, would conduct an inquiry into the matter “basically because there are witnesses named” in the report.

No date has been set for the inquiry. Senate sessions resume on the third week of July.

“It was observed that most of the victims rushed by the police to the concerned hospitals were killed from lethal wounds…‘clean shots’ to the forehead, chest or heart, often fired from less than a meter away, atypical to injuries supposedly obtained from violent and frenzied exchanges of gunfire, as claimed by members of the Philippine National Police,” De Lima said, quoting the report.

Doctors claimed that as often as twice or three times a month, the police would deliver bodies already displaying rigor mortis for resuscitation.

When asked to comment on the report, PNP chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa said police officers were not medically qualified to determine whether a victim was dead or alive, so the victim would be sent to hospital.

De Lima said these “alleged disreputable behaviors of police officers” may be indicative of abuses committed, contrary to the prescribed operational procedures found in the PNP handbook published last December 2013.

In particular, De Lima noted the PNP handbook states that excessive use of force during police operations is prohibited and, as much as possible, use of non-lethal measures should be applied to violent suspects.

By removing the bodies of the suspects from the crime scene, the forensic investigators or the scene of the crime operatives (SOCO) would not be able to effectively carry out their investigation.

With the victim already removed from the crime scene, the investigation effectively shifts from the SOCO to the police investigator handling the case, who often hails from the same precinct as the police officers who killed the suspect.

“The Reuters special report points to a distressing yet reparable anomaly in the current criminal justice system where the demands of truth and justice, which include the demand for holding public officers accountable, are being disregarded and completely undermined by an apparent criminal enterprise within the ranks of the PNP, which maliciously and systematically works to cover up heinous abuses being committed by its members,” De Lima said in her resolution.

De Lima said it is imperative to investigate the allegations to determine their veracity towards the end of ensuring that lapses or willfully malicious acts, “which enable and perpetrate the commission of abuses and outright crimes during and after police operations, are addressed and prevented from being committed with impunity.”