SEN. Ronald de la Rosa on Monday pressed the Philippine National Police (PNP) to “re-deploy” to Vice President Sara Duterte the Davao policemen who were earlier removed from her security detail.
The senator on Monday said Duterte wanted them back because she is “more comfortable” with them, saying they were part of her security escort when she was still Davao mayor. Some of them were reassigned to PNP headquarters in Camp Crame in Quezon City.
But PNP chief Rommel Marbil said 31 of Duterte’s “original” police escorts remained with her. Duterte still has 358 security escorts, most of them from the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
De la Rosa and Sen. Robinhood Padilla raised the issue at the sidelines of the Senate probe on the alleged excessive force used by the PNP in serving the warrant of arrest against Apollo Quiboloy at the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KoJC) compound in Davao City.
Marbil said there was “no political pressure” to reduce Duterte’s security detail. “We need more people on the ground. We have to account for them,” he said in re-assigning policemen.
The PNP head said there was “no threat” against Duterte. “The one who’s making the threat assessment is the Presidential Security Command,” he said.
“Can you give the vice president the freedom to choose who among her former security [escorts] should remain with her? Her complaint was she is not familiar with, not comfortable with [the new batch of policemen assigned to protect her],” de la Rosa said in Filipino.
“I know those policemen [who were removed from her security detail]. They were my former men. Can you assign those from Davao [as Duterte’s security escorts]? I am just appealing to you. I am not questioning your wisdom. Just treat me as an ordinary Filipino who wanted to secure our vice president,” the senator told Marbil.
He also insisted that Duterte still faced threats from the communist New People’s Army.
“I am just appealing to you; can you re-deploy them [to Duterte]? Can I get your commitment?” de la Rosa asked Marbil, to which, Marbil replied, “Yes, your honor.”
De la Rosa and Sen. Bong Go, allies of former president Rodrigo Duterte, used the hearing to complain about what the Dutertes said was “excessive force” used against their ally, Quiboloy, who is a fugitive wanted on charges of child abuse and human trafficking.
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