“Accusations thrown at Albayalde, who is bound to retire in days, are so serious that they could not be ignored even after Malacañang had given him a “bulletproof vest” through a statement of support.

It is troubling that the ugly zeitgeist that defines these modern times is still the illegal drug trade that propelled a Davao City mayor to the presidency and sent a once promising politician to jail and ignominy.

We could and should not forget Rody Duterte’s vow to stamp illegal drugs out of the country’s system, but three years hence into his term and with his admission that he has failed, drugs proved to have infested even the police’s core, causing it to rot.

At the center of an investigation on the police involvement into the pilfering, recycling and spread of illegal drugs is no less than the Philippine National Police chief himself — Gen. Oscar Albayalde — whom his colleagues are now accusing of having coddled the “ninja cops,” the rogue members of the PNP who made drug dealing their main source of income.

It is now the whole police force that is under the microscope, placed there when the Senate tried to get to the bottom of a very different anomaly, that of abusing what was otherwise an innocent law on recognizing convicts’ good deeds for their points to freedom.

The revelation about the existence of these “ninja cops” was not surprising. We have heard about them before, and some of them were even said to have been felled by bullets from their own peers at the height of the police’s “tokhang” operations.

Playful minds have raised the possibility of several “tokhang” deaths as a manner of cleansing by the PNP of bad eggs and their own operators. This, not a few said, included assets and snitches. There was no chance to prove these allegations and the PNP, itself, was silent about it.

But Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, former chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, could no longer contain what he knew.

Yesterday, Magalong named several members of the “ninja cops.” His earlier statements were corroborated by no less than Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency director general Aaron Aquino, a former police general himself, who is now part of the controversy that created a fissure between the PDEA and the PNP.

Prior to yesterday’s continuation of the Senate hearing led by Sen. Richard Gordon, Aquino has admitted to the rift that now separates the two agencies, which should be solidly united in enforcing the President’s war on drugs.

But the accusations thrown at Albayalde, who is bound to retire in days, are so serious that they could not be ignored even after Malacañang had given him a “bulletproof vest” through a statement of support.

Magalong said Albayalde was the recipient of a high-end Sports Utility Vehicle from an “agaw-bato” operation in 2013. He was also accused of providing cover for his men involved in the recycling of seized drugs.

It is now in Albayalde’s hands to prove himself innocent. But at this juncture, his reputation has been besmirched.

Aquino could not play safe, either. He was perceived to be holding on to more damaging information and had to be coaxed by Magalong to reveal what he knows.

Actuations like these make people even more suspicious of the agencies that are supposed to cleanse society of illegal drugs and abuse.

These issues cannot be muddled. Axe must fall where it should.

“All allegations” — this was what Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Oscar Albayalde said about the ongoing investigations on the “ninja cops,” which came out during the Senate peek into the New Bilibid Prison goings-on. Which also came out following allegations of misuse of the Good Conduct Time Allowance Law.

Yes, of course, these are all allegations. The Senate Committee on Justice is not the Court of Law. It is simply a hotbed of intrigue at the moment — and frankly, nobody knows what could possibly come out of it, after all is said and done.

After all, it is widely believed that when members of the police or military are the ones who get involved in controversy or issues of corruption, they are very likely just reassigned somewhere far, far away. They eventually return and sometimes get to hold key positions.

In any case, what is coming out of this series of question-and-answer portions is just simply too disturbing to be so easily dismissed from the mind — allegations or not.

Extra troubling lately has been the revelation about cops recycling illegal drugs. So the modus is that cops seize the goods, but only half or a portion is surrendered. The rest are spirited away someplace for future disposal.

That juicy morsel was thrown into the winds by Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, who used to head the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

It got Albayalde all upset, saying the issue of the drug queen “should never have come out,” and that it is too bad that this issue is rearing its ugly head so near his retirement.

And then the police chief recalled the security detail of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency’s director general Aaron Aquino, saying he had “too many,” numbering at 15. Aquino had confirmed Magalong’s revelations by saying recycling of illegal drugs was still “rampant” in the police force.

On Tuesday, Magalong did clear the PNP chief from the list of so-called ninja cops that will find its way into the hands of President Rodrigo Duterte (if it hasn’t already), and boy, oh, boy — we cannot wait to see what the Chief Executive will do.

Meanwhile, the investigation will push along and the PNP — now wracked once more with controversy, continues its “internal cleansing,” which the public really should look into as well. How is this cleansing being conducted, one wonders? Will it yield a leaner but more credible force once and for all?

For now, this sounds impossible, quite frankly, even if we should say that the PNP is headed by upstanding men. The President even said so — that he was ready to give up because cleansing the leadership of the corrupt is proving harder than he thought.

The police, for its part, have had to struggle time and again to redeem their reputation and rebuild their credibility. In fact, in a particularly scathing, two-part piece on the PNP published in January 2017, journalist and former Bayan Muna representative Teddy Casino called for the abolition of the force.

He wrote: “With that power comes great responsibility as well as immense potential for abuse. The challenge then is for policemen and soldiers to develop the extraordinary fortitude and integrity to remain upright.

“This challenge is made extremely difficult in a political system dominated by foreign and elite interests, and where corruption and patronage is the name of the game. The police, as the servants and protectors of that flawed system, will necessarily end up just as rotten as the corrupt and abusive politicians and operators that run it.”

He continued: “…We saw how after more than a century of serving colonial masters, local dynasties and oligarchs, and after experiencing absolute power under martial law, today’s PNP has become hopelessly mercenary and criminal. It has developed its own internal mechanisms to make use of the oppressive and corrupt systems of governance to keep its own masters in power and enrich its own set of elites — officers coming almost entirely from the Philippine Military Academy.”

The PMA is currently in the spotlight for hazing, which is illegal. How are we to believe that we can have upright forces when issues like this cast a heavy cloud of doubt on it from the beginning?