Illegal drugs could not be curtailed when even the police force is acting as a big player in the distribution of drugs, which have been supposedly seized from the big distributors as that of the Pampanga case in 2013.

Days before his retirement, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde has to prove he has no relation with the “ninja cops.”

Or he’ll be doomed all his life, like how the ghost of his past is chasing him now.

The last few days, Albayalde tried to go on an offensive PR move. He was everywhere — from radio to television to newspapers and all avenues where he could talk and be heard.

Albayalde is being accused, by his fellow generals no less, of coddling his men involved in the 2013 “agaw-bato” operation on a Chinese drug dealer. It is serious and no PR blitz could make him regain the reputation he had built as PNP chief.

That 2013 case caused Albayalde’s relief from leadership of the Central Luzon police force, pulled down by his men whom the Senate investigation on the “ninja cops” — an offshoot of an earlier probe on the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) Law mess — seen as involved in the pilfering of drugs seized from at least one suspect, aside from other illegal activities related to that fake arrest.

These police officials — all 13 of them and could be more — have tainted the police force that is now under scrutiny, not from the Senate alone but the people.

But clearly besmirched was Albayalde’s name, that the month or so left in his service is marred by accusations he could be one of the two PNP generals who have coddled PNP men involved in the illegal drug trade.

Malacañang over the weekend reiterated that there would be no let-up in the government’s fight against illegal drugs, and President Rodrigo Duterte vowed to reveal the names of the generals involved in the “agaw-bato” scheme or at least those who let their “ninja cop” men do their business unhampered.

There’ll be hell to pay, the President said in a speech which reverberated from Sochi, Russia to Manila and Pampanga, where the declared “ninja cops” had their millions and SUV and maybe their pricey watches that could not tell time, much less whether it is morning or afternoon, as the Senate probe proved.

As expected, Albayalde distanced himself from the “ninja cops” and denied giving them protection despite Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) director general Aaron Aquino insisting that Albayalde, as PNP Region 3 director, once called asking him to spare his men from dismissal.

Well, guess what?! The men were spared and were only demoted as a way of token penalty. Albayalde was also relieved of his function as PD, until luck and connections smiled at him once again and gave him his current post.

He claims to have the trust and confidence of President Duterte. He has reasons to make that declaration, of course.

A recent Malacañang statement saying the Palace has Albayalde’s back is enough to give the PNP chief the confidence to go on and trudge towards his last days to retirement.

Malacañang also should be torn whether to allow Albayalde to exit with grace. If it is Albayalde indeed whom the President had found to be one of the two PNP generals who are involved in the drug dealing “ninja cops,” then it would be disaster not only striking at the PNP but the Palace as a whole.

The President has hinged his governance on his war on drugs. He claimed to have wanted a drug-free country until he saw the enormity of the issue that he admitted he could not eradicate the drug problem in its entirety, although he vowed to do his best in cutting the source from the distributors and the users.

What the Senate probe initiated by Sen. Richard Gordon proved, however, is that illegal drugs could not be curtailed when even the police force is acting as a big player in the distribution of drugs, which have been supposedly seized from the big distributors as that of the Pampanga case in 2013.

It is also troubling that the PNP has no dossier of these “ninja cops” that it took an accidental query on former Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) chief Benjamin Magalong, now Baguio City mayor, to remind the Senate of their existence.

These “ninja cops” have no fear, though.

They are confident of protection from their higher-ups.

And they know the worse they can get is mere removal from service.

Being shipped to Mindanao is no longer a ramification they need to be alarmed against. It’s like a vacation for some of them, especially those of the higher-ranked rogue cops.

They need to face the consequences of their illegal acts like common criminals do. They should be sent to jail.

It’s only then when the PNP can regain the people’s trust.

While it is generally perceived that President Rodrigo Duterte is the Philippine leader that shook the nation to bring about swift and sometimes painful changes, in the past year or so it has become quite clear that he cannot be a one-man army.

At some point in the recent past, a tired-looking leader had spoken up about his frustration in dealing with corruption — a vast and complex landscape he discovered it to be — and a weaker spine may have well given up then and there.

The Chief Executive revealed the extent of his exasperation anew during his visit to Russia.

“Right now, even as I fly here and go back, there are about again two generals who are still playing with drugs. And I said, ‘Well, I told you do not destroy my country because it is being flooded with drugs,’” he said in a forum by a Russian think-tank in Sochi with President Vladimir Putin in attendance.

This problem with “ninja cops” and narco generals has been a thorn on the President’s side for a few years now.

In 2017, he named five generals allegedly involved in trafficking of drugs, then sacked two.

In Russia, he told the audience he had discovered about nine generals who need to be investigated.

The five he named before were retired Deputy Director Gen. Marcelo Garbo; retired Chief Supt. and now Daanbantayan, Cebu Mayor Vicente Loot; Police Director Joel Pagdilao; and Chief Superintendents Edgardo Tinio and Bernardo Diaz.

He made that revelation at the 69th anniversary celebration of the Philippine Air Force in Clark Freeport in July 2016, where he said, “I am compelled by my sense of duty to tell you the police who contributed to deterioration of law and order in this country.”

About a year later, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) was still investigating the allegations.

The agency representatives were pressed to reveal their findings during the 2018 budget deliberations in Congress, but they said they could not divulge sensitive matters and promised to go public with their findings “at the right time,” as reports say.

When will this right time be? Right now, we are deluged with disclosures showing the depth and breadth of this drug trafficking problem in our country, which began with the issue of the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) Law.

That can of worms had bred a few more, whether it was expected or not.

And if people, groups or even nations had expressed misgivings about the conduct of the drug war that Duterte had begun in 2016, now is the time to recognize that the jaws of the law are at last gaining on bigger fish at this point.

What has spread some seeds of doubt on the anti-corruption campaign has been our flawed justice system that has allowed people like the so-called “drug queen” to go in and out of the country even though she has three standing warrants of arrest! How does that happen?

How come rotten cops never get their time in jail and why have all these heinous crime convicts been set free?

These are issues we grapple with — and complicate Duterte’s fight against corruption.

What is saddest, perhaps, is that the police and military, on which he had always placed so much trust and confidence, have been revealed to be just as vulnerable as other corruptible branches they are sworn to protect the Filipino against.

President Duterte, no matter how much he rails against those whom he claims are destroying his country, would have first to fix the cracks from within the military and police.

A strong core is needed to finally get those sometimes painful changes swiftly underway.