Summon ex-PNP Chief Debold Sinas to Quad Comm–Karapatan
Human rights group Karapatan on Friday urged the quad committee of the House of Representatives to summon to its hearings three more police officers who supposedly led operations related to the bloody drug war of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
In a statement, the group called for a further “deep-dive” into the “bloody trail of funds and police officers responsible for drug-related extrajudicial killings, which seem to present leads on the possible perpetrators of the killings of activists and ordinary folks” under the Duterte administration.
To identify more culprits in the ruthless implementation of the anti-narcotics campaign, Karapatan suggested that the House panel question former Philippine National Police Chief Debold Sinas and summon Police Col. Lito Patay and police captain Kenneth Paul Albotra once more.
From 2018 to 2019, he held multiple leadership roles in the police force, including Central Visayas police chief and Metro Manila police chief. He became the national police chief in November of 2020.
“Sinas should also be quizzed on the successive police operations when he headed the (National Capital Region) police office and when he was PNP chief when arbitrary arrests and detention of activists were conducted based on questionable search warrants and planted evidence,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said.
‘Davao Boys’
Police Captain Kenneth Paul Albotra, for his part, is under fire for purportedly having a hand in the 2018 murder of a town mayor. Citing retired Police Col. Royina Garma’s testimony during the House inquiry, Karapatan noted that Albotra even bragged about how his group killed then-Mayor Antonio Halili of Tanauan, Batangas, in July 2018.
In the case of Patay, he was part of a group of police officers known as the “Davao Boys” that was sent to Metro Manila to intensify the campaign against illegal drugs.
Patay headed the Batasan Police Station 6 in Quezon City which, under his watch, became the deadliest police station in the country from 2016 to 2017.
Patay was also allegedly responsible for the “Bloody Sunday” operations, which targeted Red-tagged activists and members of indigenous groups, on March 7, 2021. He was the chief of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Region 4A at the time, according to Karapatan.
Patay was named as the CIDG chief in Central Visayas in 2018, replacing Garma.
‘Method to madness’
“These are not random acts of scalawags within State institutions such as the police. There is a method to the madness of extrajudicial killings and human rights violations,” Palabay stressed.
Palabay said that the thousands of systemic killings “all lead to state policies of the Duterte administration.”
Retired Police Col. Edilberto Leonardo, who appeared in last Tuesday’s quad committee hearing, corroborated the earlier testimony of Garma about the existence of a reward system to further motivate police officers to kill individuals suspected of being involved in the drug trade.
Leonardo, a member of the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), was recommended by Garma to lead the nationwide implementation of the drug war on orders from Duterte, who wanted someone from the religious sect to head the planned task force.
