Philippines Police chief resigns amid drug allegations

Gen. Oscar Albayalde (right)

The Philippine national police chief resigned yesterday after he faced allegations in a Senate hearing that he intervened as a provincial police chief in 2013 to prevent his officers from being prosecuted for allegedly selling a huge quantity of illegal drugs they had seized.
Gen. Oscar Albayalde said his decision relinquishing his post was accepted by Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano over the weekend but insisted on his innocence, saying he has never been criminally or administratively charged for the alleged irregularity. Albayalde, a 55-year-old former special forces commando, resigned a few weeks before his scheduled retirement on Nov. 8.
Addressing the 190,000-strong police force in the last flag-raising ceremony he led at the national police headquarters, Albayalde ordered the policemen to continue serving the Filipino people well. “Do not let these challenges demoralize or stray you from your path,” he said.
The allegations against Albayalde were the latest dark cloud to loom over the national police force, which has largely been enforcing President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody anti-drug crackdown that has left thousands of mostly petty drug suspects dead, alarmed Western governments and human rights groups and sparked complaints for mass murder before the International Criminal Court.
Opposition Sen. Franklin Drilon, a former justice secretary, said Albayalde’s resignation did not clear him of potential criminal liabilities and called for stricter vetting of candidates for the top national police post. He said he would work to amend regulations to prevent illegal drugs seized by law enforcers from being stashed and resold.
“The next Philippine National Police chief will have to work doubly hard to regain the credibility of the police community and the government’s drug war,” Drilon said.
Albayalde’s deputy, Lt. Gen. Archie Francisco Gamboa, temporarily took over the police force. AP