PNP chief Azurin defends cops charged over ‘Bloody Sunday’ killings

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Police General Rodolfo Azurin Jr. on Monday defended the 30 cops facing murder complaints over the “Bloody Sunday" killings during their operations in Calabarzon in March 2021.

At a press conference, Azurin said the involved cops were just doing their jobs.

“Now we are accounting these police officers dahil kailangan po natin silang tulungan (because we need to help them) because, to my mind, they were just performing their role as police officers,” he said.

“So hindi po natin alam kung ano po ‘yung nakita doon na kailangan po silang file-an ng kaso (So I don't know what was the basis of the filing of case against them,” he added.

During a House budget hearing on September 7, 2022, Justice Undersecretary Brigido Dulay said murder complaints have been filed against 30 PNP personnel who were involved in the incident.

Support

Azurin also called on the past leaders of the PNP to express support for the implicated cops. The PNP chief when the incident occurred was Debold Sinas.

“We are waiting din po ‘yung support, encouragement po ng mga past leaders po natin dito po sa 30 na pulis na china-charge ngayon,” he said.

(We are also waiting for the support and encouragement from our past leaders for these 30 cops who were charged.)

“While nangyari po yan during my time, yung pagfi-file, I think we also need to call ‘yung voluntary na support ng mga past leaders natin,” he added.

(While the filing of complaints happened during my time,  I think we also need to call for the voluntary support of our past leaders.)

On March 7, 2021, at least nine activists were killed while six others were arrested after police authorities conducted simultaneous police operations in Calabarzon.

Bayan secretary-general Renato Reyes said the police used questionable search warrants that usually showed that the targets had one hand grenade, which would be enough to let the cops conduct the raids.

The PNP said operations were legitimate and pointed out that the issuance of search warrants is as difficult as getting arrest warrants. — RSJ, GMA News