Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Wednesday, June 2 said the Supreme Court itself has ruled that records of the bloody anti-drug war campaign do not have any national security implications.
Thus, the Philippine National Police (PNP) is duty bound to disclose its records and follow the SC ruling in the Almora et al. and Dano et.al. v the PNP in 2018, Drilon stressed.
“In the words of the Supreme Court, drug war records ‘do not obviously involve state secrets affecting national security’ for the information and documents relate to routine police operations involving violations of laws against the sale or use of illegal drugs,” Drilon said in a statement.
“That is, plain and simple, a police blotter. Ito po ay public record at may karapatan ang taumbayan na malaman ang katotohanan (This is public record and the people have the right to know the truth),” the minority leader added.
“I do not think that by any stretch of imagination police records would involve national security,” he stressed.
Drilon’s statement comes after President Duterte issued a statement that seems to countermand the initiative of the PNP and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to launch a full investigation into all the anti-drug operations of the Duterte administration by fully disclosing all records related to the war on drugs.
In a televised public address, Duterte invoked national security similar to the government’s anti-insurgency campaign, and said that the government cannot release all police records saying there are some information about certain personalities that must be kept confidential.
But Drilon countered this saying it is essential that the PNP abides and must follow the rule of law.
“The PNP is walking on a thin line between following the high court’s order or keeping the records under wraps. But they must abide by the court ruling,” Drilon said.
“Wala naman po tayong tinatago, hindi po ba? (We're not hiding anything, right)?” he pointed out.
In 2018, the SC, in two cases against then former PNP chief and now Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, denied the Office of Solicitor General’s (OSG) defense that drug war records could implicate national security in a bid to stop the sharing of the police records.
The former justice secretary said that in accordance with the SC decision, drug war records “do not involve rebellion, invasion, terrorism, espionage, infringement of our sovereignty or sovereign rights by foreign powers, or any military, diplomatic or state secret involving national security.”
“To claim that it involves national security is unfounded. By any stretch of imagination, I could not think how would a single poorest of the poor Filipino, who was killed in an anti-narcotic operation, have planned to overthrow the government?” Drilon pointed out.
Drilon also argued that the administration’s anti-drug war campaign had left thousands of alleged drug users dead during police operations, children orphaned and wives widowed in the past five years.
“How did the likes of Kian delos Santos and many young victims of the anti-drug campaign could have threatened our national security?” he asked.
Citing his experience, the veteran lawmaker recalled that he had never seen police records pose national security implications during his stint at the DOJ.
“What we want to find out is what, where, when, and under what circumstances these thousands of people were killed. The police records will reveal only that information,” he emphasized.