Anti-drug war fuels fears on rogue cops

manila — Philippine police allegedly abducting, framing, extorting and murdering people have raised fears of rogue cops going on the rampage under the cover of President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly drug war, critics and some of his supporters say.

Revelations last week a South Korean businessman was strangled to death inside the national police headquarters after being kidnapped by anti-drugs officers looking to extort money from his wife have led to multiple other scandals being uncovered.

They have fuelled concerns that the police force, already widely perceived as one of the nation’s most corrupt institutions, cannot be trusted to prosecute Duterte’s drug war.

“It is hard for the all out war on illegal drugs to succeed because we have a problem with members of the police force taking advantage,” Senator Panfilo Lacson, an ex-national police chief and member of Duterte’s ruling coalition, said this week.

“They know the president is mad at drugs, very passionate and ordinary policemen are carried away hearing him say he has signed their pardon and they will believe that.”

Duterte has repeatedly promised to shield police from prosecution if they are charged with killing drug suspects as part of the crackdown, known locally as Tokhang.

Police have reported killing more than 2,500 people they have accused of being drug suspects, while nearly 4,000 others have died in unexplained circumstances.

Often bodies are left on streets with signs branding them drug addicts or traffickers. The crackdown is fulfilling a campaign pledge that underpinned Duterte’s election win last year — that he would eradicate drugs in society by killing tens of thousands of people. — AFP