Senate body to investigate anti-drug police

A SENATE committee will investigate police actions after a Reuters report detailed how officers have used hospitals to cover up executions in President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s year-old war on drugs, the committee’s head said on Monday.

The Reuters article, published on Thursday, detailed how police have been sending corpses of drug suspects to hospital after they were killed in anti-drug operations. Witnesses and family members said the suspects were executed and their bodies removed in a police cover-up.

Interviewed for the article, Metro Manila Police Chief Oscar Albayalde promised to investigate the findings, which were based on eight months of official crime data and interviews with witnesses, family members, doctors and police.

Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Director- General Ronald M. dela Rosa, who declined to be interviewed for the piece, challenged its contents on Friday and said police are not medically qualified to determine whether a victim is dead or alive. A spokeswoman for Reuters said the news agency stood by its reporting.

On Monday, responding to an opposition call for an investigation of Reuters’ findings, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs told Reuters there would be an inquiry.

“I will conduct an inquiry basically because there are witnesses named in the Reuters report,” added the chairman, Senator Panfilo M. Lacson, Sr. Witnesses are invited to testify under oath.

The Senate is small, with only 24 seats, but its members are influential. The Senate has also been home to Mr. Duterte’s fiercest critics.

Since the drug war began, senators have grilled top police officers and former hitmen in often sensational televised hearings that have enraged Mr. Duterte and mesmerized millions of Filipinos.

There was no immediate response from Mr. Duterte’s office to the Senate move.

The Reuters report, based on data from two of Metro Manila’s five police districts for the first eight months of the drug war, showed that of 301 victims sent to hospital after police anti-drug operations, only two survived. The rest were dead on arrival.

In July 2016, the first month of the drug war, there were 10 dead-on-arrival cases, or 13% of police drug-shooting deaths. By January 2017, the tally had risen to 51 cases, or 85%.

A police commander who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said the increase was not a coincidence and police were trying to prevent crimescene investigations and media attention that might show they were executing suspects

In a three-page resolution calling for an inquiry, opposition Senator Antonio F. Trillanes IV also cited an earlier Reuters report that described how police were paid to kill drug suspects and plant evidence. A police spokesman at the time called the payment claim “implausible.”

No date has been fixed for the inquiry. The Senate resumes at the end of July.

Meanwhile, Mr. Dela Rosa on Tuesday said he wants to recall all Special Action Force (SAF) members assigned to the New Bilibid Prison, following Justice Secretary Vitaliano N. Aguirre II’s remarks on Monday about the revival of the drug trade there.

“I want to recall also because of them, their apprehension. Our names might be damaged here. The drug trade will continue and we cannot control, our names will only be damaged, you better relieve us here,” Mr. Dela Rosa said.

“We do not totally deny that,” he said of Mr. Aguirre’s claim. “We are not washing our hands.”

Mr. Dela Rosa also said he has already talked with Chief Supt. Benjamin M. Lusad, SAF director, regarding his plans to recall the troops.

“I have talked to the SAF director. Even them, they want to be recalled from there because they have no complete control over the Bilibid drug lords, right? Before, the Bilibid drug lords were in Building 14, guarded by SAF. Now, they were transferred to the maximum (security facility),” Mr. Dela Rosa said.

“The SAF now guards Building 14 and the maximum. But there are also drug lords transferred to the medium. I just don’t know about the minimum,” he also said.

“We just want the public to know that we do not totally manage the Bilibid. The only areas guarded by the SAF are the maximum and Building 14. If the drug lords were transferred to the minimum, the SAF no longer has control over them. If there are gadgets such as cellphones and laptops that slipped, the SAF will not know about them because they no longer have control,” the PNP chief added.

In a related development, the notorious prison gang Sputnik has surrendered illegal drug paraphernalia, following Mr. Aguirre II’s disclosures on the drug trade at Bilibid.

Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) DirectorGeneral Benjamin C. delos Santos said the “Sputnik group of Quadrant 3 voluntarily surrender[ed] 31 pieces plastic sachet of suspected shabu” on the morning of July 3.

In a message relayed through Justice Undersecretary Erickson H. Balmes, Mr. Delos Santos said the surrender of drugs was “as a result of the dialogue/ negotiation conducted last Saturday.” —