SEEKING TO END POLITICAL KILLINGS
Police chiefs must take command responsibility
Published: November 26, 2006 by The Bohol Standard
FOLLOWING the murder of three militants in as many provinces in just a week, Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Oscar Calderon said that chiefs of police in areas where future political killings happen will be relieved.
Calderon, at a press conference following the National Forum on Internal Security, said the move should prove his sincerity in seeking to end the continued political killings.
“The principle of command responsibility will be in effect,†Calderon said. “Station commanders will be suspended pending the result of investigation.â€
Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno also said the new policy is proof government is really against political killings.
Calderon said his new directive is similar to the “one-strike policy†in the campaign against jueteng, in which provincial police directors are sacked if they fail to stop the illegal numbers game.
However, in the case of the killings, Calderon said the relief would be temporary unless the officer in question is found guilty of failing to stop the killings.
In Bohol, police already filed murder charges against three notorious police characters, twenty-seven days after the killing of erstwhile Hugpong sa Mag-uumang Bol-anon (HUMABOL) Chairman and Bohol Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) Chairman Victor Olayvar last September.
Two other killings this year were already in the books. In the case of Lizelda “Inday†Estorba, a Gabriela Coordinator in Candijay, she was gunned down due to a feud with her neighbors.
Although the killers of Nestor Arinque, a known ‘collector’ and a member of a local farmer organization in Mabini who was gunned down last March, were still unidentified; police however dropped the case due to lack of interests from Arinque’s family. (PIA/BOHOL-aeescobia)
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