Philippine police promotions an affront to ‘drug war’ victims

The Philippine National Police (PNP) has once again promoted rather than punished senior police officials who oversaw units implicated in extrajudicial killings linked to President Rodrigo Duterte’s murderous “drug war.” On Tuesday, Senior Superintendent Chito Bersaluna, the police chief of Caloocan City, confirmed that on May 9 he had been promoted to police chief of Bulacan province, just north of Manila. The previous day, Chief Superintendent Roberto Fajardo, who had been the chief of the Northern Police District, which includes Caloocan City, assumed his new role as chief of the PNP Highway Patrol Group. Caloocan City is part of Metro Manila’s Camanava district, which many consider “ground zero” of the “drug war” in the capital. So many people have been killed there that in September 2017 then-Metro Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde sacked the entire Caloocan police force – a first. President Duterte suggested that many Caloocan officers were involved in the drug trade.