MANILA, Philippines — Human rights lawyer and Akbayan Party-list’s first nominee Chel Diokno said on Wednesday that should he earn a seat in the House of Representatives, he will propose legislation to remove the authority of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to discipline its personnel.
“When it comes to human rights, what we can see in quad comm, what we need is a law that will give the police genuine discipline. My proposal is the PNP Discipline Act. We will remove from the PNP the power to discipline,” Diokno said in Filipino on the sidelines of the campaign launch of senatorial aspirants Bam Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan.
“We will give the power to discipline to the Civil Service Commission or a civilian agency that is independent from the police,” Diokno added.
The House quad committee’s ongoing investigation of the drug war has led to many resource persons dropping bombshells.
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Retired police Colonel Royina Garma recently revealed that police officers involved in drug war killings were financially rewarded under the “Davao template” from P20,000 to P1 million.
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Confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa also claimed that Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, who was the PNP chief during that time, ordered him to implicate former senator Leila de Lima in illegal drug trade.
Espinosa recanted his allegations against de Lima in 2022, saying that they were all false and he was coerced and pressured to do so.
Further, Diokno also said that he will push for a measure that seeks to identify deaths and their causes.
“I will propose a death investigation and recording law for those killed under suspicious circumstances or those who were obviously killed where we can identify them and second, there will be an autopsy to know the real cause of death,” he said.
The human rights lawyer previously told the House committee on human rights hearing that 20,322 drug-war related deaths were mentioned in the 2017 accomplishment report of the Office of the President.
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Diokno noted that the number of deaths were recorded from the period of July 1, 2016 to November 27, 2017.
Diokno also pointed out that of this figure, 3,967 deaths happened during police operations while 16,355 were done by riding-in-tandem and other unknown persons.
