The purge must continue

Is there no end, or no solution at all? Five hundred police officers were pulled out from the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) reassigned to the headquarters at the National Capital Region Police Office. This after 16 police officers allegedly smuggled various contraband items such as cigarettes, alcohol, and cellphones to sell to prisoners. The price of alcohol is estimated at P10 to P20,000 pesos per liter. The sixteen errant police officers were placed on floating status pending an investigation. Surprise, surprise.

The purpose of the withdrawal is to evaluate the officers' background and character to determine those who would not be tempted to do the same. But shouldn't background and character checks and evaluation be done on applicants to the police force? Catch the unsavory ones even before they enter training? I can understand there will be many who will pass training and then become corrupt because of the influence of corrupt officers themselves. Also noteworthy is the 16 who were caught were already under the leadership of BuCor chief Gerald Bantag who is supposed to be feared. I guess it did not affect them. And only 16 out of 500 were caught? I wouldn't be surprised if there are more corrupt cops who just were not caught. A fresh batch of officers has already been sent to the NBP. I wonder how long will it take before another is caught bringing in contraband? And why do prisoners have large amounts of money? With the NBP having been under Duterte appointees like Dela Rosa and Faeldon, are prisoners still able to "make money"?

The PNP's internal cleansing must continue. I think it's more important now than any other PNP campaign. Corrupt cops will only perpetuate crime in the streets. We can see this is what police officers assigned to new areas due to the reshuffling order of PNP OIC Police Lieutenant General Archie Gamboa are doing. Promises to purge the ranks from scalawags. But we have heard that many times before. Honestly, I expected that from Police General Oscar Albayalde. But his controversial past came out to haunt him.

If the PNP became more aggressive in their campaign against illegal drugs under President Duterte's orders, they should be more aggressive in cleaning up their organization. This is a big challenge for police officers who are true to their profession. They have been dragged through the mud because of those who cannot resist corruption and crime. The separation of the Internal Affairs Service from the PNP should be considered and studied for them to go after errant cops much faster and efficiently without PNP influence or meddling.