Embattled Philippine National Police chief Police Gen. Oscar Albayalde has said that he will step down 10 days ahead of his scheduled retirement.
But it is not because he is being forced out of the PNP amid the multi-million drug recycling controversy that is currently hounding him.
Albayalde is scheduled to retire on Nov. 8 when he reaches the age of 56 but will officially leave the service on Oct. 29 to allow President Duterte to attend the turnover ceremony before attending the Association of Southeast Nation summit.
“It’s because of the ASEAN summit. I think the President prefers to have the turnover before he leaves,” said
Albayalde.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit will be held in Bangkok, Thailand from Oct. 31 to Nov. 4.
Albayalde said he sees no problem with the schedule.
Rumors of Albayalde resigning from his post have circulated after a retired police general said in a Senate investigation that the PNP chief, then a police colonel, had admitted to getting a small share of the more than 160 kilos of recycled shabu and more than P60 million of the loot and bribe money from a Pampanga drug lord in 2013.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government is set to submit to Duterte next week its findings on the probe on Albayalde over his alleged illegal drug links and the agency’s recommendation for his replacement.
DILG Secretary Eduardo Año said the department is conducting an independent investigation on the beleaguered Albayalde, who, in successive Senate hearings, was accused by some retired generals of interceding to void the dismissal of 13 of his former subordinates in the 2013 Pampanga drug operation.
The 13 policemen were merely demoted to the next lower rank instead of being dismissed despite being accused of stashing 160 kilograms of their seized shabu and receiving R50 million from drug suspect Johnson Lee in exchange for his freedom.
Former PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group chief now Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong and former PNP Region 3 director and current Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Director General Aaron Aquino has pinned down Albayalde for meddling with the intention of supposedly trying to protect his former men. (Aaron Recuenco and Chito Chavez)
