Man of action

Man of action | Daily Tribune

There is this social science principle named after an American teacher, Donald T. Campbell, that states: when a metric or measurement becomes the primary focus for evaluating performance or making decisions, people will tend to manipulate or game the system to improve that metric, even if it undermines the original goal the metric was meant to serve.

Campbell’s Law is simple yet devastating: fixate on one number and everything falls apart. The Duterte drug war is a chilling example. Police officers allegedly received cash incentives for killing drug suspects, with former officials like Royina Garma admitting payments ranging from thousands to a million pesos per kill, depending on the target’s perceived value.

Police and vigilantes, incentivized by rewards and emboldened by Duterte’s rhetoric (e.g., “I will protect you”), staged crime scenes, planted evidence, and executed unarmed individuals, including General Wesley Barayuga.

This turned the drug war into a perverse incentive structure: instead of prioritizing justice, rehabilitation, and dismantling drug networks through investigation, the focus shifted to maximizing kills to claim rewards. The metric (number of deaths) became the goal, warping the mission of reducing drug proliferation and corrupting law enforcement’s role.

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Group (PDEG) was the worst offender. They recycled seized drugs to generate more operations and rewards, not only sabotaging the drug war’s goal of reducing supply but turning the police into profiteers. The metric (drug hauls or kills) became a tool for personal gain rather than to promote public order and safety.

Enter Benhur Abalos, then Secretary of the Interior and Local Government. He busted this drug war corruption and manipulation wide open, not with rhetoric but action.

The PDEG recycling case traces back to the October 2022 arrest of Police Master Sgt. Rodolfo Mayo Jr., a PDEG operative linked to a P6.7-billion shabu haul in Manila. Investigation later revealed a cover-up by PDEG officers, including then director Brig. Gen. Narciso Domingo.

In January 2023, Secretary Abalos made a bold but risky move: he directed all 953 PNP generals and colonels, including the PNP Chief, to submit courtesy resignations. This wasn’t a random purge but a response to the mounting evidence of police involvement in illegal drugs, including the so-called “ninja cops” who recycled seized drugs back into the trade.

The idea was to fast-track an internal cleansing process, bypassing the slow judicial system, and identify officers with drug ties through a vetting committee. Abalos framed it as a radical but necessary step, citing intelligence that senior officers were involved.

Asking all police officials to submit their resignation was not only a courageous act, but it was also unprecedented in both scale and audacity. He made every general and colonel a suspect until proven clean, reversing the burden of proof in an organization that protected its own.

It was also a political tightrope for Benhur. He risked alienating allies, inviting backlash from a still-powerful loyal Duterte base, and destabilizing a force already battered by public distrust. Yet he pressed on, armed with a simple conviction: the PNP couldn’t cleanse itself without a reckoning.

In April 2023, Abalos presented CCTV footage showing PDEG personnel mishandling the operation, hinting at efforts to protect Mayo and possibly recycle the drugs. This sparked further scrutiny, and by May 2023, the National Police Commission (Napolcom) recommended accepting the resignations of four PDEG-linked officers — two generals and two colonels — for drug-related misconduct.

In January of this year, the Department of Justice ordered the filing of charges against 30 police officers, including General Benjamin Santos and General Narciso Domingo and four police colonels, stemming from the Mayo case.

All this showed us that Benhur Abalos is a disruptor. He simply gets the job done, not with false rhetoric and slogans, but with courage and unyielding resolve. The drug war left a mess — with thousands dead and almost no drugs taken off the streets, and a police force turned bounty hunters.

Benhur Abalos dragged everything into the light. A corrupted police bureaucracy was forced to confront its own decay. This is his legacy. Indeed, a man of action like Benhur Abalos is a necessary figure in our government.