SC ruling triggers massive info try on police BWCs

Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar ordered Sunday deputy chief for operations Lt. Gen. Israel Ephraim Dickson to prepare for a massive information campaign on the use of body-worn cameras.

Eleazar made the directive after the Supreme Court En Banc on Friday issued a resolution that includes the rules on the use of BWCS in the execution of warrants.

“I ordered our PNP Deputy Chief for Operations Police Lt. Gen. Bong Dickson to coordinate with our legal service and human rights affairs office together with our technical working group that we have created for our massive information drive in our ranks about the rules on the use of body-worn cameras released by the Supreme Court,” he said in a video message in a mixture of English and Tagalog.

He said the use of BWCs would soon be part of the police operational procedures throughout the country.

“Although it will not be fully implemented yet in the coming days due to our ongoing processes, our PNP should prepare for its implementation since it is a product of the cooperation between the Supreme Court and the PNP,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has been asked to review earlier issued search and arrest warrants that led to the killings of and arrest of activists.

Kapatid, a support group for political prisoners and their families, made the call after the high court promulgated the rules on the mandatory use of body-worn cameras or other recording devices in the service of warrants by law enforcers.

The SC said the rules would be enforced after publication.

On Saturday, Eleazar ordered the creation of the technical working group that would study and incorporate the rules crafted by the SC into the police guidelines on the use of BWCs.

Eleazar thanked Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo for supporting the PNP’s efforts to further professionalize the organization and to strengthen a human rights-based approach in the conduct of police operations. See full story online at manilastandard.net)

The Directorate for Operations and the Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management were tasked to come up with a recommendation on the composition of the TWG.

The TWG was also instructed to come up with modules that will be used in the training and seminar programs on all the legal aspects of the use of BWCs to the police units which received the units last month.

The PNP launched the body-worn camera system on June 4 to ensure transparency and legitimacy of law-enforcement operations. Initially, a total of 2,696 body cameras have been distributed to 171 police stations and offices.

The SC resolution issued last Friday was based on the request for assistance of the PNP from the High Court which was facilitated by Secretary of the Interior and Local Government Eduardo Año and Secretary of Justice Menardo Guevarra.

The SC rules include specific provisions from the issuance of the arrest and search warrants by the courts and in the service of the warrants by policemen.

The rules also have guidelines on the preservation of the recordings from the BWCs, the chain of custody of the video recordings and legal procedures that must be observed in accessing the BWC recordings.

“The rules on the use of the body-worn cameras crafted by the High Court are a big help to erase doubts and speculations in the conduct of our operations, especially in our aggressive campaign against illegal drugs,” Eleazar said.

“For accountability and justice to hold sway, we press that a review be made of all cases that emanated from the sala of those judges who turned their courts into a search warrant factory that led to the arrest and outright killing of activists,” Kapatid Spokesperson Fides Lim said, in a statement.

The group spokesperson said the SC should “start off with Judge Cecilyn Burgos Villavert of the Quezon City regional trial court and down the line.”

Lim pointed out that these magistrates “should be made to answer for brazen violations of basic rights, due process and the rule of law, which the new SC rules seek to rectify.”

“This is especially true in the cases of targeted activists who were the subject of these search warrants that were used as basis for manufacturing charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives, which were in fact planted as evidence to keep them in prolonged detention,” she claimed.

“The Supreme Court rules should be pursued to their logical conclusion toward the release of all political prisoners who are the direct victims of these judges’ wrongful and culpable actions,” she said.

Lim welcomed the SC for issuing the rules on the use of body-worn cameras by law enforcers in the service of warrants.

Aside from Kapatid, National Union of People’s Lawyers President Edre Olalia also expressed gratitude to the SC for having come up with the rules.

“Generally, the rules are grounded on abundant experience and appear to have taken into good account the clamor to address the situations that arise in rights violations,” Olalia said.

The rules, he said “also incorporated or included provisions similar to the specific concrete recommendations we submitted to the Court (such as submission of recordings during inquest, denial of multiple search warrant applications, limiting the scope of the power of courts to issue search warrants only within their judicial region, inadmissibility or suppression of seized evidence in searches without use of recording devices, protocols when deaths occur, use of cameras by witnesses, rules on chain of custody, and others.”

According to him, the rules show that the SC “does not want to tie the hands of law enforcement agencies in legitimate and legal searches and arrests.”

Besides, the rules “are aimed to preserve the integrity of the processes as well as help strengthen the independence of the judiciary and the sound exercise of judicial power and sanction for violations.”

But he pointed out that the rules contain provisions which “unwittingly provide gaps, loopholes and opportunities for circumvention on the ground.”

Among these provisions, he noted, are on the minimum number of video recording devices allowed, the non-designation of the person who should be making the recording, and the limited battery life of the recording devices.

“At all events, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so to speak, and we shall continue to actively cooperate, recommend and even call out as these welcome reforms are tested out there on the ground,” Olalia stressed.