Napolcom strategy shift gains support

The House Committee on Dangerous Drugs backed the National Police Commission’s proposed shift of strategy on the government’s anti-drug campaign metrics-driven approach to stave off cops from fabricating arrests and seizures for possible rank promotion.

Panel chairperson Surigao del Norte Representative Ace Barbers concurred with Napolcom vice chair and executive officer Atty. Alberto Bernardo’s statement that the Philippine National Police system of promotion and performance rating of anti-drug police operatives is “seriously flawed.”

“Imagine, based on these fake accomplishments, the officers kept on being promoted until they are high up in the ladder and can control and influence the organization,” Barbers said.

He stressed that the cops are focusing on the statistics-heavy analysis that forced them to stage bogus and fabricated accomplishments.

Barbers’ remark came just days after Bernardo revealed in a Senate hearing last week that the Napolcom eyes to shift away from a metric-driven analysis of the country’s drug situation in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding the P6.7-billion drug haul in Manila in October last year involving 49 PNP officials and personnel and its alleged double cover-up.

The legislator, on the other hand, emphasized that police have become so acclimated to their illegal operations that they have become an integral component of the entire drug mafia.

“The promotion is just one part. The worst part is the reward, monetary as well as ‘saving’ a huge chunk of the drug haul, as another form of rewarding themselves. This drug haul is called savings and ends up being recycled back into the streets,” Barbers said.