IT seems like Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Chief Debold Sinas is singing a different tune. After consistently denying the involvement of active policemen in the spate of killings of alleged drug personalities in Metro Cebu these past few months, he has admitted that maybe some of them are into it. But he clarified that the cops are hired by drug syndicates to kill drug personalities who fail to remit the proceeds of their sales and because of the competition in the illegal drug trade.
In a Facebook live interview with another paper, Sinas said they are now monitoring retired and active policemen in the region who may have been paid by drug lords to be their hit men. Some local officials and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR 7) were alarmed by Sinas’s revelation. They want this to be investigated.
Sinas explained the organizational setup of a drug syndicate: there is the drug lord, who supplies the illegal drugs and distributes these to the drug pushers. Then there is the collector and the hit men.
With Sinas’s statement, are there really policemen who are working as “double agent,” especially in the war on drugs. Are they “moonlighting” as hitmen? Or are they guns-for-hire doubling as policemen? And can we still trust the police organization? We don’t know who among the policemen are honest to the service and who among them are evil.
Now, may I ask the good general, who was the late PO1 Eugene Calumba? Was he working for the government? Or was he working for a drug syndicate? Calumba was the one who conducted a surveillance operation on Tinago Barangay Councilor Jesseielou “Jingjing” Cadungog. But Cadungog’s driver/bodyguard, William Macaslang, shot Calumba dead. Was Cadungog a target of a drug syndicate with Calumba as his would-be assassin or was he in the government’s list of drug personalities?
Was PO3 Roderick Balili working for the government or was he working for a drug syndicate? Balili was accused as one of those who ambushed Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) agent, Von Tecson, who was on board his vehicle in Perrelos, Carcar City several months ago. Tecson allegedly was able to return fire and hit Balili.
Many people who witnessed the incident and the personnel of South General Hospital in the City of Naga, where Balili was first brought, identified him as one of the assassins. Balili died a few days later. But Sinas insisted that he was hit by his own firearm while conducting a surveillance operation on a drug personality in Pinamungajan.
Who killed lawyer Jonah John Ungab, Ronda Mayor Nonie Blanco, PDEA officer Earl Rallos and the Malubog 5? Were their killings perpetrated by government agents or were they killed by drug syndicates?
If indeed Sinas’s revelation is true, I challenge him to identify these active policemen who are working for drug syndicates and charge them so they will already be out of the organization. They are scalawags in uniform. They do not deserve to be in the service because they are working for the enemies of the state.