A Duterte loyalist for more than two decades, Ronald ‘Bato’ de la Rosa was a former Davao City Police Chief under both Mayors Sara Duterte and her father Rodrigo. In 2016, he was handpicked by the president himself to become the chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP).
As PNP Chief he implemented the controversial Oplan Tokhang, which recorded more than 6,600 deaths for suspected drug users and dealers from 2016-2018 alone. These numbers, however, do not yet include over 22,000 killings by police-backed vigilantes, which have been classified as “homicides under investigation,” since the war on drugs began in 2016.
The drug war has killed innocent bystanders including children as young as three years old. To this, the newly-elected Senator de la Rosa could only say that in an ‘imperfect world,’ ‘sh*t happens.’ He recently filed a Senate bill that seeks to revive the death penalty for drug traffickers.
