The menace in illegal drugs is police protection.

This is central to the testimony of Kerwin Espinosa, a self-confessed “drug lord”.

A teardrop alone from PNP Director General Ronald Dela Rosa cannot inundate the criminal conspiracy of some of his men.

If the conspiring police officials and personnel are exorcised and prosecuted with alacrity, then the extrajudicial killings of suspected drug dealers and users will end.

Suspects are eliminated by the police to silence them from squealing on police protectors and to make the deadly anti-drug campaign a façade to conceal their culpability.

Command responsibility to take the necessary action is on President Duterte and Dela Rosa.

The Duterte administration and the leadership of the Philippine National Police can start solving the illegal drug problem not by the continuing summary execution of suspects, but by putting behind bars the police protectors of those involved in the narcotics trade.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN