PNP setting up human rights desks in all police stations — Bacalzo

MANILA, Philippines — The new leadership of the Philippine National Police (PNP) will push for the establishment of a human rights help desk in every police station in the country amid allegations of torture allegedly perpetrated by an officer and his men on an arrested snatcher in Manila.

Director General Raul Bacalzo, PNP chief, said the plan will be patterned after the Women and Children’s Desk which is now firmly established in every police station to cater to the complaints of domestic violence and other crimes involving children and women as victims.

“As an officer of the law, I believe that policing must be anchored on the basic tenets of human rights,” said Bacalzo.

The newly appointed PNP Chief issued the statement while the police organization is still reeling from torture allegations involving Senior Inspector Joselito Binayug and his men in the Manila Police District.

Binayug and his men were accused of torturing an arrested snatcher, the video footage of the actual incident was caught in a video footage which later aired in several television stations.

The incident, however, was superseded by another controversy involving dismissed Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza who held hostage a tourist bus, eight of the foreigners were killed in what is now called as the bungled rescue operations in Manila on August 23.

Bacalzo said instilling the respect for human rights to every 135,000 personnel of the PNP will be a priority, saying it is part of the back to basics retraining program which he will initiate at the span of his one-year stint as PNP Chief.

“One of the standards that we will be using in our reform programs is the recognition and defending human rights,” said Bacalzo. “Upholding human rights is tied with implementing our police operational procedures properly,” he added.

The PNP has been human rights-sensitive organization, starting off with the tie-up of the PNP and the Commission on Human Rights that led to the creation of the PNP Human Rights Affairs Office in Camp Crame.

Presently, the PNP-HRAO has already produced a primer on human rights policing, with every members of the anti-riot units of the PNP being subjected to crash course on human rights before they are send in the streets against protesters.

Once established, the help desk will be in charge for conducting investigation on complaints of human rights violations particularly against those who would be perpetrated by those in the uniformed service and other law enforcement agencies.

“It is time to put a stop to this (human rights violations), by continuously reviewing our police operational procedures, to plug loopholes and flag potential avenues for violations,” said Bacalzo. –AARON RECUENCO, Manila Bulletin