Supplemental guidelines on drug ops to stress accountability — PNP official

Supplemental guidelines for the conduct of anti-illegal drug operations will stress accountability among the members of the Drug Enforcement Units that will be created, a high-ranking Philippine National Police official said Tuesday.

Director for Operations Camilo Pancracius Cascolan said the DEU members will need to prove that they followed the proper procedure if a death occurs as a result of their operations.

“They need to be accountable for all the actions they have to do. Kung may mamatay diyan dapat i-prove nila na proper yung procedure nila at saka lumaban talaga yung tao. That’s why we have the inquest fiscal; we have to inquest the activity immediately,” Cascolan said in a phone interview with reporters.

“Kapag nangyari ‘yun tatawagan agad ‘yung inquest fiscal, whether may mga sugatan, mga patay, o arrested, so that the fiscal will  be able to evaluate and  analyze if the operation was properly done,” he said.

He added there will also be a periodic vetting of the DEU members to ensure that they are not involved in illegal activities.

“The vetting of members will not only be at the start. It will be a periodic vetting, evaluation, and analysis of the performance of each DEU member para at least malaman natin kung baka mamaya ay involved na pala. Baka noong una ay malinis sila pagpasok tapos after so many months e na-involve na rin sila kasi iniiwasan natin ‘yung corruption,” he said.

Cascolan said that encouraging the use of body cameras is one of the big changes introduced in the supplemental guidelines.

“We encourage them to use body cameras for the meantime habang wala pa tayong government-issued. We cannot force them if we they don’t have yet the body cameras. But once it is issued, considering also the limitations, it will be used in HVT [high-value target] operations,“ he said.

Cascolan said the Directorate for Logistics has already procured some 100 body cameras, but they do not know when will they arrive.

He said they would have wanted every DEU and PNP Drug Enforcement Group member to have a body camera, but it would take time.

“We will not give everybody kaagad eh. It takes time to have that procurement so what we will be doing is we’ll be issuing it for high-value target operations,” he said. — BM, GMA News