At least three Makati City police officers were axed from their positions yesterday after they were caught on video laughing while strip-searching a woman allegedly involved in illegal drugs.
On the video given to ABS-CBN News by an unnamed man who claimed to be a former anti-drug operative, a woman can be seen being instructed to bend over while naked as the police officers appeared to be laughing.
The incident reportedly happened in March last year.
According to National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) director Chief Superintendent Guillermo Eleazar, this was clearly in violation of protocol.
“You can say that you are inspecting the bodies of the suspects … But not in that way, that the woman herself is naked in front of men. And we can see that they were even laughing,” he told ABS-CBN News in Filipino.
According to the ex-anti-drug operative, incidents like this are allegedly a regular occurrence when officers inspect drug suspects.
“When you’re a woman, you’re made to strip, they’ll search your butt, everything. The people there will laugh at you,” he said in Filipino.
He also shared a photo of a man undergoing a similar strip-search.
However, the officers involved in the incident claim that the woman wasn’t actually a drug suspect and that the strip-search featured was actually a demo.
Makati City police chief Rogelio Simon was told that the woman involved in the video wasn’t really being searched for illegal drugs, rather, she was allegedly paid to participate in the demo.
“They paid the woman because they knew her, like their friend or an asset … Like they had a demo on how to search suspects for drugs hidden inside their body,” Simon told radio station DZMM in Filipino.
According to ABS-CBN News, the police officers involved will face complaints of grave misconduct and could possibly be removed from service.
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