HE said — SHE said

“It’s a tough job and Gamboa knows it. But he has to pave the road for the incoming PNP Chief President Duterte has yet to name.

A revamp is the most logical step the Philippine National Police (PNP) could take after it was besmirched — AGAIN! — by claims, allegations and confirmation of its personnel’s involvement in the illegal drug activities.

Cleansing the force and the system would be an unreachable dream. Forget it! There will always be bad eggs rotting the police force.

With only 13 of them charged before the court by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), along with former PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde, it would be accurate to say that some rogue cops still lurk there.

How many are a disgrace to the whole police force is a guess, but we could be sure there are still some good men in the service. Their number? It’s also a guess.

So, the revamp initiated by PNP officer-in-charge Archie Gamboa could somehow project order in the police force after it was tainted by 13 men, three of whom have recently been caught repeating their crime from 2013, who pilfered from their drug haul to resell in the streets, thereby making themselves drug lords, too.

But that is not the only crime the court will now find to prove.

They are also being accused of demanding bribe from the Chinese drug lord. Then they released the drug suspect in exchange for another Chinese whom they presented on his behalf.

Those are serious cases. But there’s more.

Albayalde came in when he allegedly tried to intercede on their behalf. His accusers — his own superiors and upperclassmen in the PMA — alleged that he received calls from the former Region 3 top cop who tried to save his 13 men by seeking downgraded punishment rather than rightful expulsion from the force.

One of them even claimed Albayalde to have admitted to have received “not much” from his men after the drugs had been resold.

The PNP has been under attack from critics since President Rodrigo Duterte enabled it to launch a war on drugs, his main campaign promise.

Not a few policemen have been linked to so-called extrajudicial killings (EJK), which until now is subject of debate both here and in the international front. It may even linger after President Duterte’s term as there is a threat from militant lawyers to bring a case against him once his term is over in 2022.

If I remember right, only three policemen involved in EJK had been convicted.

Caloocan Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 125 Judge Rodolfo Azucena Jr. sentenced PO3 Arnel Oares, PO1 Jeremias Pereda and PO1 Jerwin Cruz to reclusion perpetua (20 to 40 years) without eligibility for parole for the killing of senior high school student Kian delos Santos.

The court said the three used unnecessary force in nabbing the boy and pumping bullets into his body. He died instantly, helpless and pleading to be freed as he needed to complete a school assignment on that fatal night.

The PNP is soiled no doubt. But it is not without redemption.

It needs a good, clean leadership. Not just a leader, but a good, clean leadership.

Gamboa has put on hold all promotions granted by Albayalde. We need not look elsewhere that it was a statement that would not be to Albayalde’s liking.

Albayalde’s men are being watched. And that is the proper action Gamboa has taken.

The OIC has put his trusted men on acting capacities while the system is being reworked.

A lawyer, Gamboa is banking on the rules and laws to make things right in the PNP.

It has to work, or the police force would not be able to save its face from the smirking people at its sight.

But he has to pave the road for the incoming PNP Chief President Duterte has yet to name.

He could not turn over a fractured and hurting police force to the next leadership. He could not leave before he makes PNP regain the people’s trust.

It’s neither an action drama nor a horror fiction, though action may have certainly gone on and there is an element of horror (or horrifying greed, more like) in the scheme of things.

“I gave you everything!” he said. “How could you do this to me?”

That was something along the lines of President Rodrigo Duterte’s rebuke of the Philippine National Police (PNP) following the fiasco of recycling drugs and those shocking New Bilibid Prison shenanigans.

We all know how Duterte had placed his complete confidence and trust on the PNP from the very beginning. In fact, his constant defense of the force had been a source of criticism many times before.

In the past, when Duterte was getting the heat from human rights groups and international bodies for his deadly war on drugs that had seen questionable police

encounters with drug suspects, the President had always come to the defense of cops. The most controversial had been the slay of a teener in the hands of policemen.

Indeed, Kian de los Santos was a trigger that caused an explosion of criticism directed at the Duterte administration (not that it affected his popularity ratings at all).

Through all that time, as well as that one about cops receiving gifts as long as said gifts are not bribes, the President had shown his propensity to side with the authorities, trusting their judgment on judgment calls, relying on their expertise and believing they are trustworthy and straight in all matters.

No wonder the recent mess involving a number of PNP officials and members had practically derailed that relationship. The Commander in Chief is ordering a revamp of PNP even as it awaits a new national police chief.

It must have hurt like hell to have news like policemen recycling narcotics seized in anti-drug operations. It must have been a blow that hit a massive nerve — that one that always expressed a hatred for the illegal trade that ruins lives especially those of the youth.

And what of the penal system catastrophe? Again, cops are tagged for bringing in contraband and selling them to inmates who are supposed to be incarcerated in order to rehabilitate their ways.

But a PNP revamp will not be as simple as it sounds.

It may take years to “rehabilitate” that which had become seemingly as flawed as the ones they had been tasked to help bring back to society.

Following the stepping down of Police Gen. Oscar Albayalde as head of the police force on allegations that he had “protected” subordinates accused of pilfering 160 kilos of shabu in 2013, PNP officer-in-charge (OIC) Lt. Gen. Archie Gamboa considers it his “challenge” to help the President with this revamp.

Will the OIC be able to lift the President from this fog of “utmost disappointment?”

Yet what can the public deduce from the fact that the dismissal order against the 13 Pampanga officers was “downgraded to demotion” after they filed a motion for reconsideration and the criminal cases filed dismissed for “lack of evidence?”

There is that myth or murmurings that when policemen figure in such messes, they are usually sent packing to some godforsaken place and left to languish in relative anonymity until they can be brought back and maybe even given prime positions.

Whether true or false, such ideas must now be proven wrong if government want to be taken seriously for its claims of wanting to clean up the PNP and making a huge revamp that, quite frankly, seems impossible at this point.