POLICE END DRUG WAR, DISSOLVE NARCO UNITS
But officers may still make arrests if drug-related crime is committed in their presence
The Philippine National Police (PNP) yesterday stopped the implementation of its anti-narcotics campaign and dissolved all anti-drug units in line with the presidential directive giving the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) the exclusive mandate to wage the campaign against illegal drugs.
But police officers may still make an arrest if a crime related to illegal drugs is committed in their presence, said PNP deputy spokesperson Vimelee Madrid.
“Kung ang (if the) situation warrants (a) warrantless arrest, we can effect the arrest immediately. If the crime is being committed in our presence and we have personal knowledge that a crime is being committed or is about to be committed, we will effect the arrest,” Madrid said.
“We will still uphold the law. The use, dealing, buying of illegal drugs are punishable by law so we are still mandated to arrest anytime,” she added.
Oplan Double Barrel, the PNP’s campaign against illegal drugs, was terminated effective yesterday.
PNP chief Ronald dela Rosa also ordered the dissolution of all drug enforcement units.
“For this matter, all DEUs from police regional offices down to police stations are hereby dissolved,” said PNP Directorate of Operations chief Director Camilo Pancratius Cascolan.
Cascolan said members of these units may be reassigned to intelligence units.
The PNP Drug Enforcement Group will remain, but will be tasked only to gather information that may assist the PDEA in their operations.
Last January, President Rodrigo Duterte temporarily barred the PNP from taking part in the government’s war on drugs following the death of Korean businessman Jee Ick joo allegedly in the hands of the policemen inside the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame.
PNP spokesperson Dionardo Carlos said the PNP will focus on anti-criminality and terror- ism operations as well as internal cleansing.
Meantime, Dela Rosa said if the government’s war on drugs which they spearheaded for at least 14 months, was the reason for Duterte’s 18-point drop on his satisfaction rating, then they were guilty.
“If we’re guilty, kung totoo na dissatisfied mga tao dahil sa war on drugs na ginagawa namin... then we are very guilty. Sorry, kami nagbigay ng dissatisfaction ng mga tao towards the President,” he said.
(If it’s true that the people are dissatisfied because of the war on drugs, then we are guilty. Sorry if we are the cause of dissatisfaction in the President’s performance.)
Duterte issued the memo- randum taking the PNP out of the government’s war on drugs following the release of a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey that showed his satisfaction rating went down by 18 points and net trust rating declined by 15 points.
In a separate SWS survey, it showed that 54 percent or six out of 10 respondents do not believe in the police claim that drug suspects are being killed because they resisted arrest and fought with the authorities.
Based on PDEA records, a total of 3,811 drug suspects were killed from July 1 to August 29 while 107,156 others were arrested during the conduct of over 70,854 anti-illegal drugs operations.