No special treatment for officials involved in extrajudicial killings in Duterte’s drug war: Remulla
New Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla said Monday that no special treatment will be given to officials who will be proven guilty of being involved in the alleged extrajudicial killings in the previous administration’s drug war.
Remulla said this after following House hearings on former President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs which tagged some ex and current officials as linked to extrajudicial killings.
“We have to understand that they are innocent until proven guilty. So we must not judge them already according to testimony. They have to go through the process,” Remulla said.
“There are no sacred cows in this institution and in this investigation. Anyone who is guilty, anyone who is found guilty, anyone will be treated like any other person,” he added.
In continuing the campaign against illegal drugs, Remulla said his orders to the PNP are to not make extrajudicial killings (EJK) part of it and focus on the supply side.
“Number one is that EJK is not part of it. Number two, the PNP has done very well on the demand side. Drug cases are up. They have seized a record number of drugs in terms of gross amount in the last two years but we have to concentrate also on the supply side. I think the supply side and the demand side have to be tackled at the same time,” Remulla said.
For his part, PNP (Philippine National Police) chief Gen. Francisco Rommel Marbil said they are still getting statements from the former chiefs and that their investigation is still ongoing.
“We asked the former chiefs to give statements because (former colonel Royina Garma) said the former chiefs are being informed regarding the war on drugs. So we have to take their statements and see something about it so we know where we will start in our investigations…We will just wait for the final output of the congressional hearing so we can really fully finish our investigation,” Marbil said.
In a previous congressional hearing, Royina Garma, who is a retired police colonel, claimed Duterte asked her to search for a police officer who could implement the “Davao model” of the drug war on a national scale.
She alleged that Duterte’s former assistant, Senator Christopher Go, was involved in managing the reward system for police who killed drug suspects. Jaspearl Tan/DMS
