THE government’s war on corrupt police was off to a shaky start this week, with President Rodrigo Duterte offering a P5-million cash reward for a suspect who was already in police custody.
In a nationally televised press conference midnight Jan. 29-30, the President railed against Supt. Rafael Dumlao, a suspect in the kidnapping and killing of Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo inside police headquarters in Camp Crame in October last year.
Fuming mad and hurling invectives, the President gave Dumlao 24 hours to surrender for “putting the reputation of the police in shambles.”
Addressing Dumlao directly, he said: “If you do not come out soon, I will offer… P5 million [for you] dead or alive. You deliver him to me dead, that’s okay with me. Bring him to the gate of Malacañang dead, alive, it’s all okay.”
Later, Philippine National Police chief Ronald dela Rosa was seen whispering to the President that Dumlao was already in custody.
“Latest story. He’s already in our custody. Better, Dumlao. You’re even a lawyer. It would be a pity if your wife becomes a widow, and your son would lose a father,” the President said.
Asked why he was late in being informed about Dumlao’s whereabouts, the President again got it wrong, telling the press that he just met his police chief during the midnight briefing—when photos clearly showed the two together in the command conference that preceded that briefing.
The lack of coordination between the President and his PNP chief is a cause for concern. At the very least, it proved embarrassing to the President. At worse, in another scenario, it could result in the President taking action that has been rendered moot by information that he did not have.
A similar lack of coordination has been seen between the PNP and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), both of which have been investigating the Jee case.
Often during the initial stages of the investigation, the two seemed to be talking at cross-purposes, with the PNP pinning the blame for strangling Jee on PO3 Ricky Sta. Isabel and his superior in the Anti-Illegal Drug Group (AIDG), Dumlao. But the Justice Department, which oversees the NBI, spoke of the possible involvement of higher officials and even raised the preposterous suggestion that Sta. Isabel—whom his cohorts had tagged as the one who strangled Jee—be turned into a state witness.
In response to this mess, the President has ordered all anti-drug units in the PNP dissolved and told Dela Rosa to clean house. The PNP chief seems to be moving in this direction, with plans to create a Counter-Intelligence Task Force to go after police scalawags. In the meantime, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency will assume primary responsibility for waging war on illegal drugs.
It is unclear as yet how the new task force will be any different from the PNP Internal Affairs Service—or how, if at all, the two groups would coordinate. For the sake of the campaign against crooked cops, we hope all the concerned agencies would coordinate more effectively than they have to date. To rescue the PNP from irreversible damage, the time for embarrassing gaffes has passed; the time for effective and coordinated action has arrived.