77% of drug cases filed from 2016-2022 pending —DILG's Abalos

Seventy-seven percent of drug cases filed from 2016 to July 2022 are still pending, Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos Jr. said Thursday, with the Justice Department making steps to improve the conviction rate.

Abalos said of the total 291,393 cases, some 22,000 ended with conviction, 5,753 were dismissed, and 223,579 are pending.

“Ang drug cases ngayon medyo marami… dapat mabantayan ito (we have a lot of drug cases… and these should be monitored),” Abalos said in a press conference.

Abalos said the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) is seeking to reassess police investigators and review how they are recruited.

He said that of the 22,774 police investigators in the country, only 123 are law graduates.

“Magkakaroon ngayon ng pagtuturo. Reassess. Reassessment of what’s happening right now on the ground. So retraining kung anong meron sila, we will supplement it, kailangan siguro tignan maigi sino qualified, sino hindi,” he said.

(We will hold seminars. We will have a reassessment of what’s happening on the ground. We will retrain, we will supplement, we need to see who is qualified.)

“Hindi naman pwedeng nag-volunteer ka, hindi naman para sa 'yo ang maging imbestigador. That’s my personal point of view. There should be a reassement of those who were chosen,” he added.

(It shouldn’t be just because you volunteered even though the job of being an investigator is not for you. That’s my personal point of view. There should be a reassessment of those who were chosen.)

Abalos stressed that the investigation conducted by an investigator would determine the conviction of cases in courts.

“For me this is very, very important. Because this single, important data, or act done by an investigator would determine, again, I emphasize, the result not only in the Department of Justice, but likewise, whether or not the case would be for conviction or acquittal in courts,” he said.

Meanwhile, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said the government is seeking to retrain law enforcement units in remedial and substantive law to improve the country’s 25% conviction rate for criminal cases filed in court.

“Remedial meaning procedure. Mula pa lang sa surveillance, effecting and arrest, preserving the scene of the crime, processing a scene of the crime, processing the evidence. All of this has to be restudied, reincorporated, and of course, reinjected into the system in a more widespread manner,” he said.

Witnesses

Abalos said so many cases are dismissed due to the lack of witnesses. To prevent this, he suggested assigning an employee to the Department of Justice to join drug raids and serve as the witness, similar to what they did in Mandaluyong City.

“And with that halos wala kaming kaso sa Mandaluyong na na-dismiss because of this technicality [and with that we almost have no cases dismissed in Mandaluyong],” he said, referring to the absence of a witness.

He said he would appeal to the League of Cities of the Philippines to assign witnesses to the DOJ.

“I will be requesting from the mayors and also from other public officials na baka puwedeng gawin din nila ito to help in this cases. Para makatulong. Kasi nga karamihan na di-dismiss,” he said.

(I will be requesting from the mayors and also from other public officials that they might copy the same to help the cases. This could help because a lot of cases are dismissed.)

Duterte list

When asked about former President Rodrigo Duterte's list of government officials and policemen allegedly linked to illegal drugs, both Abalos and Remulla vowed that those truly innocent would be eventually cleared.

“Kine-clear namin ‘yung mga taong puwedeng i-clear, ‘yun lang. Kung na-validate, what can we do? Validated, andyan sa intelligence, may case build-up then it’s ongoing. Pero sa mga taong kailangan i-clear, eh di i-clear natin. Unjust naman na hindi natin i-clear,” Remulla said.

(We are clearing those that we can clear. But if you are validated, what can we do? They are in the intelligence and there is a case build-up. But for those that we can clear, we clear them. It will be unjust if we don’t.)

According to Abalos, from July 2019 to July 2015, 298,664 complaints were filed against police officers with drug-related cases.

Of this, 5,551 cases were dismissed at the prosecutor level while 5,753 cases were dismissed in court.  —KBK, GMA News