EDITORIAL - Stonewalling
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To no one’s surprise, the Department of Justice has reportedly found it challenging to get the cooperation of law enforcers involved in killings related to the Duterte administration’s war on drugs. DOJ Secretary Menardo Guevarra admitted last week that police personnel involved in the operations have shown reluctance to cooperate in the review of the cases.
Newly installed Philippine National Police chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, who wants to promote transparency in law enforcement, had announced that the DOJ would be given access to PNP records on the campaign against illegal drugs, starting with 61 operations wherein complaints of possible police abuses have not been dismissed for lack of evidence.
Guevarra, however, said the DOJ still does not have in its possession any of the police files, whether electronically or the physical hard copy. He said the DOJ is also finding it difficult to persuade witnesses to provide testimony that could lead to the criminal prosecution of erring police personnel in connection with the drug war.
The DOJ is also reviewing operations conducted by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, several of which ended up in the deaths of drug suspects. Some PNP and PDEA operatives have reportedly expressed concern about violating the Data Privacy Act if they shared certain information with the DOJ. But Guevarra said the National Privacy Commission has allayed such concerns, so law enforcers can provide the necessary information to the DOJ.
If PNP and PDEA operatives refuse to cooperate, they must be penalized for stonewalling. Surely the DOJ has legal tools to do this even as it continues to review the conduct of the war on drugs. Critics have already expressed suspicion that the review is meant simply to give the International Criminal Court one less reason to poke its nose into the Duterte administration’s bloody campaign against the drug menace. This suspicion can only be reinforced by law enforcers’ stonewalling of the DOJ review.
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