PRESS STATEMENT
Rep. Edcel C. Lagman
1st District, Albay
0916-6406731
22 September 2016

The plan of President Rodrigo Duterte to revive the Philippine Constabulary (PC) and merge with it the Philippine National Police (PNP) is a vestige of martial law even as it is unconstitutional.

Duterte said recently that this plan would significantly improve the country's war against illegal drugs and its campaign against urban terrorism and extremist groups.

He also said that the PNP will form part of the resurrected PC to boost the fight against criminality and the drug menace.

It must be recalled that the late President Ferdinand Marcos extensively used the PC as the police force in implementing martial law by arresting, detaining and torturing the victims of atrocities during the martial law regime as well as the take over of private establishments and media outlets.

Numerous abuses during martial law were blamed on the PC. Critics of the late dictator compared the PC to the Gestapo, the secret state police of Nazi Germany.

To beef up the PC, Marcos merged with it the Integrated National Police (INP) so much so that the two institutional agents of martial law were known as the “PC-INP”.

The plan is also a violation of Section 6, Article XVI of the Constitution which mandates: “The State shall establish and maintain one police force, which shall be national in scope and civilian in character, to be administered and controlled by a national police commission.”

After martial law, the PC was disbanded and its remaining officers and men were allowed to join the Philippine National Police which was created under Republic Act 6975.

The machinery of a militarized police must be consigned to the dark era of the past.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN