Philippine National Police (PNP) Director for Operations, Police Maj General Rhodel Sermonia, sees that the PNP’s fight against illegal drugs will end in a landslide victory, which is a demonstration of response to President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s order before he steps down next year.
Like the communist armed conflict, Sermonia said that despite having little time left, he is confident that the President’s campaign promises against illegal drugs will succeed or achieve a “strong finish,” which will show the focus on declared provinces, towns, cities, communities, and barangays as drug cleared or drug-free.
The aggressive fight against illegal drugs began during the time of ex-PNP chief Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, whose flagship program is called TokHang.
All subsequent PNP chiefs continued the successful drug war up to Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar.
“PNP’s basic approach to illegal drugs problem are anchored on market denial of supply of illegal drugs and insulate communities from the illegal drugs menace through community-based activities in partnership with different stakeholders, which actually are not new,” said Sermonia.
“In order to increase the chance of attaining the “strong finish” on illegal drugs campaign, the PNP Directorate for Operations will focus the direction of the campaign towards revitalizing,” he added.
PNP’s war on drugs to have ‘strong finish’ – Gen. Sermonia
Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has released some details on the drug war cases it has reviewed, but human rights groups are not satisfied.
The DOJ’s analysis of about 50 cases in which drug suspects were killed in police operations revealed that most of those killed were in buy-bust operations, in which police say the suspects allegedly pulled out a gun and resisted.
But the service of the internal affairs of the PNP itself is not convinced in some cases that the suspects did fight back.
In 7 cases, the drug suspects tested negative for paraffin.
They did not fire a gun while the police did not show any documents or report proving that the victims actually fought back.
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