Albayalde: Purging rogue cops a tough task

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, Director General Oscar Albayalde is confident he could reduce, if not totally eradicate, the number of rogue cops in the force.

But he admitted he might have to hand over the task of removing the bad eggs to the next PNP chief once his term ends in 2019.

"When you're trying to change the culture it's really difficult. It can't be changed overnight. So probably not even during my term that it would be changed, but I'm hopeful we could improve [the ranks]) substantially," he said.

He said the involvement of cops in illegal activities continues to baffle him, since the government has already expressed much support to the police organization. Earlier this year, President Duterte raised the salaries of police officers and soldiers.

Albayalde conceded that scalawag cops may have become part of PNP’s culture.

He cited the case of Bocaue, Bulacan, police chief Supt. Juwen dela Cruz , who was caught by the Counter-Intelligence Task Force (PNP-CITF) agents extorting an iphone from the relative of a drug suspect over the weekend.

The CITF also learned that the Bulacan Drug Enforcement Unit took the suspect’s sports utility vehicle without noting it in the police blotter.

Albayalde said Dela Cruz has been indicted for robbery-extortion, carnapping and graft.

"Our problem not only includes PO1s and PO2s, and we admit this. We also have problems on our officers especially so in the middle level officers like chiefs of police, commandants and city directors," he said.

“That is very critical in the leadership within our ranks because they are the ones directly involved in controlling or supervising the men on the ground. That is why we encourage leadership by example," he added.

Albayalde said CITF has already arrested 80 cops involved in various illegal activities, mostly in drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion and robbery.

At least 1,700 more rogue cops are on the CITF watchlist.