2 NCRPO officials face ax in drug war

Two of 38 chiefs of police under the National Capital Region Police Office are underperforming in the government’s all- out war against illegal drugs, NCRPO director Chief Superintendent Oscar Albayalde said yesterday.

He said he confronted the two officials and warned them to “shape up or be shipped out.”

“We are burning our butts in the war against illegal drugs but these two police officials appeared to be relaxing and not in a hurry to meet the targets given to us by President Duterte,” Albayalde said in an interview.

Albayalde refused to divulge the names of two officials but sources said that one of them is from the Eastern Police District while another is from the Southern Police District.

Duterte gave officials of the Philippine National Police (PNP) six months to rid the country of illegal drugs.

For his part, PNP chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa gave chiefs of police a month to clear their area of illegal drugs and district directors three months.

So far, the NCRPO arrested at least 2,855 drug pushers and users and neutralized 269 others since July 1.

Dela Rosa said the NCRPO topped the countrywide performance in the war against illegal drugs for the first month of its implementation.

Since July 1, however, the two chiefs of police were not at par with their counterparts in the performance against illegal drugs but were spared from being relieved because Dela Rosa changed the parameters in tabulating accomplishments.

When he visited the NCRPO last Friday, Dela Rosa relayed a new policy in tabulating the performance of police officials in the war against illegal drugs.

Earlier, Albayalde created a committee headed by Chief Superintendent Rolando Nana, the NCRPO’s deputy director for operations, to evaluate the performance of the 38 chiefs of police and station commanders in Metro Manila against illegal drugs.

“If the evaluation of Nana ( using the new parameters) shows that these two (officials) are remiss in their duties, then I have no recourse but to replace them,” Albayalde said.

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