MANILA – Two police officers are facing dismissal after testing positive for illegal drugs during a random test.
Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, Gen. Debold Sinas, who is currently under quarantine after contracting coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), said Wednesday he has ordered the pre-charge investigation and summary dismissal proceedings against Cpl. Christian Cerado, assigned at Parañaque City Police Station and Staff Sgt. Ildefonso dela Cruz Jr., assigned at Iloilo Police Provincial Office.
Sinas said urine specimen of Cerado and dela Cruz contained traces of methamphetamine during random drug tests administered on personnel of the Parañaque City Police Station last February 24 and on operatives of the Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU) and Station Drug Enforcement Team (SDET) of the Iloilo Police Provincial Office last February 18.
Both police officers have been disarmed and placed under restrictive custody.
"We will not stop until we completely cleanse the police force of drug-using members," Sinas said.
He added that he would make all unit commanders accountable for ensuring that their personnel are "strictly coming to terms with making the PNP a drug-free organization with repeated PNP-wide random drug tests."
Earlier, Sinas has ordered the surprise drug testing of all police personnel under the ongoing internal cleansing program.
A total of 16,839 erring police officers have been penalized since 2016 under the PNP’s internal cleansing program to rid its ranks of scalawags. (PNA)
