EDITORIAL — This was the war on drugs

Two years after going into hiding, former police superintendent Rafael Dumlao III was finally arrested on June 9 in Quezon City.

Dumlao had been on the run since 2024 after the Court of Appeals reversed his acquittal by Angeles City Regional Trial Court Branch 60 Judge Eda Dizon. The CA sentenced Dumlao to life in prison as the mastermind in the gruesome execution of South Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo inside Camp Crame, headquarters of the Philippine National Police. Dumlao was also sentenced to another life term for kidnapping and serious illegal detention of Jee’s househelp Marisa Morquicho, plus another 35 years for carnapping.

The CA ruled that Judge Dizon gravely abused discretion and that the RTC trial was a sham and an apparent mockery of justice.

Jee and Morquicho were seized from the Korean’s house in Angeles City in October 2016 in the guise of a drug bust by members of the PNP Anti-Illegal Drugs Group under Dumlao, and then held for an P8-million ransom. Jee’s wife reportedly paid P5 million, but he was still strangled to death in his own car while the househelp was freed. Jee’s body was taken to a funeral parlor for cremation and the ashes then flushed down the toilet.

It was one of the worst abuses in the early months of the bloody crackdown on illegal drugs launched by Rodrigo Duterte during his presidency.  

Dumlao is now in the New Bilibid Prison. Authorities must also recover the P5 million paid in ransom. That money belongs to Jee’s relatives, not to Dumlao’s family. Failure to recover the ransom would be rewarding crime.

Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, who announced Dumlao’s arrest, used the occasion to remind the nation about the gross human rights abuses committed in the course of Duterte’s so-called war on drugs. Remulla also emphasized that unlike the thousands of killings in the drug war, the arresting team from the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group respected Dumlao’s rights.

“We did not violate any procedure. We read him his rights. We did not hurt him,” Remulla said, adding that the approach of the Marcos administration to the anti-drug campaign “works without killing anyone.”

That approach must be sustained even as the PNP relentlessly pursues drug dealers. The lucrative illegal drug trade is a serious threat to society, not only because of the risks it poses to public safety and people’s health, but also because it engenders corruption.

Having sent Duterte to The Hague for trial before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, the Marcos administration must show that the means to protect society from the drug scourge need not involve mass murder.