EDITORIAL — Azurin’s prolonged silence

Flight is generally seen as an indication of guilt. Prolonged silence can give the same impression, especially if it is coming from someone who is not a fugitive or a person deprived of liberty whose public pronouncements might be curtailed by the state.

It’s been nearly a week since two police generals accused of involvement in an alleged cover-up of irregularities in a P6.7-billion drug bust have denied wrongdoing and insisted that all their actions in connection with the raid were cleared with the chief of the Philippine National Police himself, Gen. Rodolfo Azurin. How hard would it be for the PNP chief to refute or deny outright such statements?

Until last night, however, the public waited in vain for Azurin’s statement. In the meantime, the highest ranking PNP officer implicated in the alleged cover-up, former operations chief Lt. Gen. Benjamin Santos Jr., yesterday decried what he said was the lack of due process in the order for him to go on leave pending an investigation of the controversy.

Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos told Santos to go on leave together with Brig. Gen. Narciso Domingo, head of the police Drug Enforcement Group, the lead unit in PNP operations against illegal drugs. The DEG had raided an office in Tondo, Manila on Oct. 8 last year and seized 990 kilos of shabu.

The site was occupied by the Wealth and Personal Development Lending Inc., owned by police M/Sgt. Rodolfo Mayo Jr., at the time an intelligence officer of the DEG’s Special Operations Unit in the National Capital Region. Abalos said CCTV footage showed the raiders removing Mayo’s handcuffs and allowing him to leave the site. Of the eight other PNP officers told to go on leave or face suspension, six are DEG members, including Col. Julian Olonan, chief of the DEG SOU 4A in the Calabarzon; the officer-in-charge of the DEG SOU-NCR at the time, Lt. Col. Arnulfo Ibañez; his deputy Maj. Michael Angelo Salmingo, and the head of the DEG SOU 4A arresting team, Capt. Jonathan Sosongco.

Last Tuesday, Domingo and Olonan told a press conference that releasing Mayo was a “tactical move” approved by Azurin and meant to catch bigger fish in the drug trafficking network. They said subsequent events, however, no longer made this possible.

Such “tactical moves” are not unusual in anti-narcotics operations. Unless Azurin refutes the story, public doubt may shift to him, especially if the police officers implicated in the controversy present material proof to back their version of events, such as digital messages, video or audio recordings. The PNP chief was supposed to issue his statement yesterday morning, but reset this to Monday. The sooner he clears the air, the better.