Torre: Many cops only forced to follow Duterte drug war orders

None other than the police general who arrested former president Rodrigo Duterte has revealed that many cops who followed the former president’s drug war orders were only forced to do so.

“Pero (But at the end of the day, these people who followed him, marami diyan napilitan talaga (many of them were only forced),” Criminal Investigation and Detection Group chief Police Major General Nicolas Torre III said in a Rappler Talk interview aired on Tuesday, March 18.

“They are under duress. Kasi may mga times before na, ‘pag hindi ka sumunod, ikaw ililista. Ikaw ilalagay sa listahan, at ikaw ang sasabihin na protector, at ikaw rin ang papatayin. Huwag nila sabihin na hindi,” the general added.

(Because there were times before that if you don’t follow, you will be included in the drug list. You will be part of the list, you will be accused of being a drug protector, and you will be killed. Don’t say this was not the truth.)”

Torre led the high-profile operation against Duterte on March 11, that led to the former president’s arrest and sendoff to The Hague over his crimes against humanity case pending with the International Criminal Court (ICC). Duterte, whose drug war killed nearly 30,000 people, based on human rights groups’ numbers, was found by the ICC prosecutor to have used his so-called Davao Death Squad (DDS) and law enforcers to order the killings of alleged criminals.

When Duterte became president in 2016, he used the Philippine National Police (PNP) then led by his first PNP chief, now Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, to start the drug war. In 2021, self-confessed former DDS member Arturo Lascañas revealed in his affidavit submitted to the ICC how Duterte gave kill orders to his hitmen.

Fast forward to 2024, the House of Representatives’ quad committee probe into the drug war and extrajudicial killings paved the way for bombshell revelations, including former drug war poster boy Jovie Espenido’s exposé that the PNP was given the license to kill at the height of the drug war.

Retired colonels Royina Garma and Edilberto Leonardo also confirmed in their affidavits the existence of the reward system in the drug war and how Duterte implemented his “Davao template” — the drug war model he used in Davao City — on a national scale.

Torre said the PNP has always been a political organization and during the drug war, the police followed orders because it is also “a very professional organization.” He explained that the PNP would follow the orders given by duly constituted authority like Duterte, as it was part of their pledge to always obey legal orders from these types of authorities.

“However, the orders may be questionable. Definitely questionable. But if you’re a policeman, are you in the position to question the order of the commander-in-chief? Right? So we can say that whatever the police did, we can say it’s covered by command responsibility,” the CIDG chief told Rappler in a mix of Filipino and English.

The general also questioned Duterte’s supposed Davao template, saying that Duterte thought that what worked in his city, would work in the entire country.

“[But] did it really work in Davao? Because I was once a regional director there. So on record, I will say there are cases that are in ongoing trial, but when we checked in our CIRAS (Crime Information, Reporting and Analysis System), the cases were not recorded. So where did those cases go? Why were they not part of the statistics?” he added.

Difference with Duterte

Torre also filed complaints against dissenters. He filed an inciting to sedition complaint against Duterte after the latter joked about killing senatorial aspirants under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas slate.

Most recently, he’s also filed a cyber libel complaint against a pro-Duterte vlogger who spread disinformation that Torre had been hospitalized.

But for Torre, he’s way different compared to the former president.

“Duterte and I are different. When handling dissents, I go through the legal process, right? I don’t get people killed, right? I went through the legal process…That’s really our process. Dissent will always be here, and our ideas will always clash because Filipinos are intelligent,” said the general. – Rappler.com

*Some quotes were translated into English for brevity