‘HE HAS HAD ENOUGH’

Palace denies pressuring Albayalde to step down as PNP chief

The Palace did not pressure former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Police General Oscar Albayalde to quit his post amid allegations that the latter was involved in the controversial 2013 drug bust in Pampanga, presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said Monday.

Panelo made the response a few hours after Albayalde relinquished his post ahead of his scheduled retirement on November 8 or when he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 56.

“I do not think so [that the Palace pressured him to step down]. I have not heard of anything leading or leaning to that. Perhaps he has had enough of the accusations, innuendos, about his involvement in the drug case, given that his family is suffering from according to him, unfair and false allegations against him” Panelo said in an interview on ANC television.

“He wants to spare the organization  from whatever speculation..bad or false, about him and the organization,” he added.

Panelo, however, could not say if Albayalde made the right call in resigning.

“I don’t know. It is for him [to answer],” Panelo said when asked if resignation ahead of his retirement was a good decision.

Prior to his resignation, a number of retired police officials revealed in a Senate probe that 13 police officials under Albayalde’s supervision as then Pampanga police director only turned over 36 kilos of the 200 kilos of drugs that they nabbed in a 2013 drug bust in Mexico, Pampanga.

The 13 officials were ordered dismissed in November 2014 by then-PNP Region 3 Police chief Raul Petrasanta, but this dismissal order was never implemented and was even downgraded to demotion by one rank lower by October 2017 by Major Amador Corpus.

Corpus is a batchmate of Albayalde in the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1986.

Retired police officials and now Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong and Aaron Aquino testified in the Senate probe that between July and December 2016, then National Capital Region Police Office chief Albayalde called then-Region 3 Provincial Office chief Aquino to ask the latter not to implement the dismissal order against them because these 13 were his men.

Albayalde denied that his call could influence Aquino, but the latter that he did not act on the dismissal order against 13 of Albayalde’s men and instead assigned them to Mindanao.

Retired police official Rudy Lacadin of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, for his part, also said that Albayalde called him and told him, “actually, Sir, konti lang ang napunta sa akin diyan [sa 2013 drug bust].”

These testimonies, however, are not convincing as far as the Palace is concerned.

“Ang problema naman sa statement ni General Lacadin, sinabi niya, I don’t know if he (Albayalde) is joking or not. Paano kung ikaw ang judge, [masasabi mo], hindi mo pala alam kung totoo o hindi,” Panelo said. 

Police Lieutenant General Archie Gamboa has been designated OIC of the PNP. — Llanesca T. Panti/RSJ, GMA News