PNP welcomes P5 million reward for every ‘ninja’ cop killed

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Police (PNP) yesterday welcomed the P5-million reward offered by President Duterte for every erring “ninja cop” killed by lawmen.

PNP chief Director General Oscar Albayalde said the cash incentive will discourage police scalawags from doing their corrupt activities.

“That’s an awful deterrence for these few bad cops from continuously treading on their crooked path,” Albayalde said.

He said the reward would also boost the morale of policemen. Albayalde earlier said they are monitoring around 1,000 police officers with reported involvement in the illegal drug trade.

“A huge incentive as well for the majority of our good cops to aggressively root out these ninja cops from our ranks, in a manner that should be patently smart and legal,” he said.

Duterte on Friday said these corrupt officers are pulling down the PNP in its war on illegal drugs.

In a drastic move to weed out the bad eggs from their ranks, Albayalde has ordered a full background investigation of the entire batch of police officers if one of them is arrested for illegal drugs and other criminal activities.

Albayalde issued the directive after the recent arrest of PO1 Jeffrey Amador for alleged drug trafficking and physically abusing his wife. The rookie policeman was caught in a drug sting at his apartment in Taguig City on Wednesday.

Albayalde has ordered a background investigation on all of Amador’s batchmates.

“If we arrest new graduates who are PO1s, we will call on the whole batch and profile them,” he warned.

“All of them will be subjected to a complete background investigation just to ensure and make sure none of them are involved or in cahoots with their batchmate.”

Albayalde said the likelihood of a corrupt policeman influencing fellow officers on his illegal activities is always there, citing Amador who was caught selling narcotics.

“We know he was caught for drug pushing. There is a possibility he has a batchmate or classmate that is involved,” he said.

Amador was caught with five sachets of shabu and a .45 caliber pistol with magazine and five bullets.

An angry Albayalde hurled profanities at Amador whom he confronted at the Southern Police District headquarters in Taguig on Wednesday.

Albayalde was so incensed that he almost slapped Amador with the latter’s police badge.

Weeding out rouge policemen from the PNP were among the issues Duterte took during the early months of his term.