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Reforming the PNP?

Newly appointed Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla has indicated that he wants to remove the culture of extrajudicial killings in the Philippine National Police and the PNP Academy that has become rampant during the previous administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

Remulla said there is a need for a change of mindset within the civilian police organization, which normalized vigilante style killings and taking the law into one’s own hands. “The problem there is that in the previous administration, there has been a cultural shift in the PNPA, on the extrajudicial means of dispensing justice becoming normalized for all of them and became acceptable. So that culture continued,” he recently said.

“They need a change of mindset. There is a need for prosecution and to determine who participated in EJKs and weed out those who participated in it,” he added.

Aside from changing that part of the culture of the PNP, Remulla also wants to depoliticize the PNP and promote a merit system as among the structural reforms he intends to implement.

The admission by the head of the Department of Interior and Local Government himself that EJKs and vigilante style killings have become normalized in the PNP is a most significant development for the organization that has allowed itself to be corrupted to the core in recent years. Now that the issue has been brought out into the open, by the Interior Secretary himself, it can no longer be brushed aside and ignored, and must be faced with accountability and reforms to ensure that the damage can somehow be reversed.

The most difficult part is usually for high government officials to admit that grievous mistakes have been made, especially when a flagship program is concerned. With that achieved, all we need is the follow through of Secretary Remulla. Hopefully he is as serious and determined as he presents himself, and somehow succeeds in reforming the Philippine National Police that had transformed itself into a death squad in recent years, he would have the gratitude of a nation that has become wary of their policemen and the manner at such public servants have been delivering a horribly disfigured brand of justice in this country.*

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February 2025
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