EDITORIAL - Credible probe needed

Five days after Kian Loyd delos Santos was gunned down near his home in Caloocan, police have trotted out someone who claims to have personal knowledge about the slain teen’s alleged activities as a drug courier.

The story, however, is proving to be a hard sell in this season of “planting” drugs and guns to bolster police claims of resisting arrest. Too many “witnesses” in this country have admitted lying to protect themselves from police brutality, or have recanted their stories or contradicted each other’s testimonies even before a congressional inquiry.

The commander of the Northern Police District, which has jurisdiction over Caloocan, has admitted that neither Delos Santos nor his father was on the drug watch list of the city’s police, although Caloocan cops are now frantically moving to present Kian as a “new” drug suspect. The NPD chief also admitted that the Grade 11 student was not the target of the police sweep on Wednesday night last week.

There’s also that damning surveillance video footage of Delos Santos being dragged away moments before his death. Police are claiming the boy in the video is not Delos Santos, even if barangay personnel and the boy’s neighbors insist otherwise.

An autopsy showed Delos Santos was shot in the head and back. What happened to shooting merely to disable? This boy was finished off. Even if defenders of the brutal drug war manage to prove that Delos Santos was a drug courier who tried to shoot the police, it does not justify his killing. Cops should also be aware that suspected child offenders younger than 18 enjoy special protection under the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006. 

With the frantic police efforts to present Delos Santos belatedly as a drug fiend, the investigation of this case should be taken out of the hands of the Philippine National Police – if the government wants a credible probe. The Duterte administration has so far enjoyed public support in the war on drugs. Admitting that abuses are possible in the drug war and that there can be bad eggs in the police, and guaranteeing punishment for the rotten eggs will not weaken the PNP. On the contrary, the PNP will enjoy greater public trust if it helps give justice to Kian delos Santos.