In less than a month, Director General Ronald de la Rosa, the Chief of the Philippine National Police, will retire from service when he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 56.
Many would say that 56 is too young to retire but that is the law and will have to be followed unless amended.
His impending retirement comes when there is news circulating that the war on drugs will again be handled by the PNP.
By the time “Bato” de la Rosa relinquishes command of the PNP, he would have led the organization for about 19 months. That is not really a very long time if we compare it to others who have headed the PNP, but in that short period of time, “Bato” de la Rosa has taken the PNP to dizzying heights—or abyss—depending on how one wants to judge his stewardship of the police organization.
In such a short time, thousands of drug suspects died. This dwarfs a similar drug war in Thailand during the premiership of Thaksin Shinawatra. This one also resulted in the death of thousands of drug suspects.
There is no doubt therefore, that Dela Rosa’s leadership on the war on drugs will define his legacy in the years to come. He has not yet made public his specific plans when he puts on a mufti but a few days ago, it was reported that he wants to lead a vigilante group against rogue policemen when he retires.
Perhaps he should not be rushing into such plans. He should spend the few remaining weeks of his stewardship touring the different PNP commands to say his goodbye to the rank and file as is customary.
He might also like to visit his counterparts in the Asean region to bid them farewell. When he does retire, he will find out that life in retirement will be altogether a very different thing. This is because once retired from the service, his standing in the PNP will be dependent on how those still in the active service view his past leadership. How he will be treated in retirement might shock him.
I have seen many retired senior officers who are shunned and completely ignored by those still on active service. This is why organizing and then leading a vigilante group, supposedly to go after rogue policemen, may not be such a good idea. Besides I am sure that there must be a senior government job waiting for him the moment he retires like General Eduardo Año of the Armed Forces. It is simply a question of what position.
There is also the possibility of him running for elective office like some former chiefs of the PNP.
Of the three former PNP Chiefs who ventured into politics, one became a president, two others failed to be president but one is currently a senator.
Bato hinted in some past media interviews that he might throw his hat in the political arena and 2019 is probably what he was thinking as a good time to do it.
But unlike Harry Roque and Mocha Uson, his name was not mentioned in a prospective administration line up for the Senate. But it is still a bit early. If he wants to run for office, he should try spending time to polish and improve his image. He should not put all his bets solely on his role in the war on drugs.
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If President Duterte indeed returns the war on drugs to the PNP as the primary implementing agency, this must be done after a thorough study to determine what the true state of the drug problem prevailing in the country is.
After 19 months of campaigning that resulted in thousands of deaths, we still have no reliable data on whether the situation has improved or not. The government is still using the figure of between three million and four million drug users. This is the figure that former Director General Dionisio Santiago used while he was head of the Dangerous Drugs Board.
President Duterte also used this. As General Santiago himself admitted, this figure was an educated guess and not based on any scientific study or survey. It was, however, based on calculations of available figures at that time. One figure coming from the PNP is that approximately 1.5 drug users have already surrendered together with the neutralization of some prominent drug lords. If we take this figure as accurate, there should now only be around 2.5 drug users remaining. But the PNP is not saying that.
The truth however, is that we do not have any reliable figure to base government policy decisions going forward. This is why before the government returns the drug campaign to the PNP, the government must come up with credible figures to determine if the 19-month war on drugs succeeded in reducing the problem or simply worsened it.
Another problem is that the figures coming from the government and those from some independent entities like the United Nations Office on Drugs and Organized Crime. The UN figure does not come anywhere near our government figures and is even below the world average benchmark. So, not just for the sake of all Filipinos but also for the purpose of sound planning and management of the next chapter of the drug campaign, let us first conduct a credible and scientific study of the current state of the drug problem that we can show to all the doubting Thomases and then decide on the best move forward.