EDITORIAL - Weak links
President Duterte has described the Philippine National Police as “corrupt (and) rotten to the core.” The brutal execution of South Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo right inside PNP headquarters at Camp Crame in 2016 was just one of the cases that prompted this assessment by the President.
His assessment appears to have been validated again last Thursday. PNP officials suspect that a drug deal gone sour was behind a shootout in Muntinlupa between cops and members of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology. Two policemen, one of them retired, and two BJMP jail officers died in the encounter. Another jail guard, seen on surveillance camera being seized by armed men after the shootout, is missing.
Over at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa, certain inmates are suspected to be the suppliers of party drugs worth millions that were seized in recent raids in Metro Manila by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. PDEA officials said they traced millions of pesos worth of ecstasy and other party drugs to the NBP, where drug convicts with access to smartphones and protected by corrupt guards are believed to be running their illegal businesses outside prison.
Last Thursday’s armed encounter shows just how much cleansing is needed in the agencies tasked to fight criminality and keep the public safe. A criminal justice system is only as strong and effective as its weakest link. In this country, however, there are so many weak links, from the point of apprehension to detention during trial and finally during imprisonment.
Anyone trying to cleanse the ranks may not know where to start, but purging misfits is not an impossible task. As long as the purge is sustained and misfits realize that their punishment is guaranteed, reforms might yet take root.
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