Kidnap cops

It was bound to happen, and sooner than later considering the environment of impunity that the police force has been seemingly granted.

After all, when no less than the President delivers the blanket assurance that whatever police officers do in the line of duty will not be subjected to sanctions as long as he is the country’s highest official—even if their actions cross the bounds of integrity, professionalism and the very codes of conduct of the police organization—then that promise of carte blanche protection will only serve to embolden the corrupt among the ranks.

And it has been happening in the administration’s brutal war on drugs and crime. Now entering its seventh month, the campaign has produced not only an ever-escalating body count but also mounting evidence of rogue policemen taking advantage of the extraordinary leeway given them by President Duterte. That some cops were doing double duty as vigilantes was on full display in the case of two Oriental Mindoro policemen caught and exposed as a riding-tandem execution team. They shot in cold blood a local crime watch leader, reaffirming the widespread suspicion that many in the police force are themselves part of the criminal enterprises they are sworn to go after.

Mr. Duterte’s flagship campaign was also ostensibly about rooting out the corruption and criminality that have tainted law-enforcement operations. By smashing the drug syndicates, he was cutting off the supply of money and influence routinely used to make cops look the other way, or worse, to protect and participate in the drug business. But, as concerned sectors have repeatedly warned, using the same compromised police force without first cleaning up their ranks, urging them to employ the most ruthless methods while assuring them of ready pardon any time they violated their own protocols of conduct or engagement, was an open invitation to abuse.

“Operation Tokhang,” at this point, claims as metrics for its success nearly a million drug “surrenderers” and over 5,000 suspects killed, mostly allegedly because they resisted arrest. The total fatalities, as documented by independent observers, are closer to over 6,000 at this time; a number of those who died at the hands of unknown gunmen had earlier turned themselves in to the police, only to be targeted for extrajudicial killing just the same.

Activists have also complained of “Operation Tokhang” being used to harass their ranks and flush out suspected New People’s Army rebels, with members of progressive organizations in the countryside suddenly finding their names on the local drug watch lists. And suspects already in police custody, whether poor or not, don’t have it easier: The fate of the father and son who were killed by cops inside a Pasay police station was essentially the same as that visited on the imprisoned Rolando Espinosa, the mayor of Albuera, Leyte.

And now, cops appear to have upped their game by venturing into kidnapping for ransom in the name of the drug war. In an exclusive story, the Inquirer’s Tarra Quismundo reports that a South Korean businessman, Jee Ick-joo, has been missing since October, after policemen barged into his home in Angeles City announcing a drug raid and then taking him away. The cops have been identified as from the Philippine National Police Anti-Illegal Drugs Group in Camp Crame. The businessman’s distraught wife, who is appealing to Mr. Duterte’s administration for help in finding her husband, says their house was also ransacked and some P540,000 worth of jewelry and other personal items stolen.

It was the PNP itself that suggested the kidnap-for-ransom angle; in the case referral letter it sent to the Department of Justice, it recommended that the suspects—one police officer plus four others and “several John Does”—be investigated for kidnapping for ransom and serious illegal detention.

One shudders at what other atrocities will be committed in the name of this out-of-control war on drugs.