PNP claims human rights cases vs cops dropped by 40%

THE Philippine National Police (PNP) Human Right Affairs Office (HRAO) has claimed on Wednesday that human rights violation cases filed against police officers went down by 40 percent from 2014 to 2016.

HRAO director Chief Superintendent Dennis Siervo said 174 cases of human rights violation allegedly committed by cops were recorded in 2014, while 131 were listed in 2015, and only a total of 105 cases were lodged in 2016.

“There is a downward trend on personnel involved in human rights violations, so pababa, despite ‘yung half of the previous year there was a change of administration,” he said.

“If you think the war on illegal drugs will escalate the number of human rights violations, the statistics show that it goes down. It did not contribute to the rise of human rights violations,” he added.

Siervo said common complaints of alleged human rights violation include homicide, illegal detention and arrest, and rape or violence against children and women.

However, he said they are yet to identify which of the 105 human rights violation cases filed in 2016 are directly related to the administration’s war on drugs.

Siervo said in the first quarter of 2017, 56 human rights violation cases were filed against several police officers.

"The year has not yet ended, who knows. I cannot predict if this will rise or this will fall, we will have to wait. If we think that 56 is already half, then maybe my office will have to step up our drive on how to prevent the occurrence of such violations," he said.

Siervo said to help policemen avoid such charges, they are constantly visiting PNP regional offices to review and remind police officers of the PNP’s operational procedures.

The war on drugs led by the PNP has been the government’s priority since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in July.

Earlier, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) said that based on their investigation, there is no “massive” human rights violation in the country.

DILG Assistant Secretary Epimaco Densing said they evaluated 25 out of more than 1,000 police operations conducted from July 1 to October 13, 2016.

Of the 25, 23 cases were found to be "regular," which means that the police "correctly" reported the incidents, while two cases have to be reinvestigated due to irregularities in the reports. Sunnex