Three Philippine police charged with robbery and extortion have been transferred instead of suspended or sacked, authorities said Thursday, fuelling concerns about immunity for rogue officers prosecuting President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly drug war, reports AFP.The announcement of the punishments for the trio came as a Senate inquiry began into the murder of a South Korean businessman allegedly by anti-drug police officers who extorted money from his wife.Critics of Duterte’s drug war, which has claimed more than 6,000 lives, say he has emboldened corrupt officers with his repeated pledges that he will shield police if they are charged for killing drug suspects. Duterte personally ordered the three officers, accused of extorting a mother and son of 120,000 pesos ($2,400) last week in Manila, to the violence-plagued south of the country, a police statement said on Thursday.
“This is part of the continuous internal cleansing of (the city police),” Guillermo Eleazar, their police chief in Quezon City, a district of the capital, said in the statement.
“(It) should serve as a lesson for those involved in illegal activities and also a stern warning for others not to do the same.”