CEBU CITY — The man who headed the police station tagged as “the deadliest police station” is now the new director of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Central Visayas (CIDG-7) .
Supt. Lito Patay, a native of Siquijor, replaced Senior Supt. Royina Garma, who was named chief of the Cebu City Police Office last month.
Patay and Garma used to serve Davao City Police Office.
In his first conference as CIDG-7 chief Patay said he has no plans of issuing new directives and the CIDG will continue to perform its regular duties.
“It’s not our job to kill. Our job is to arrest criminals, jail them, and prosecute them,” said Patay, who once headed the Batasan Police Station 6 in Quezon City.
Under Patay’s command, the Batasan Station was dubbed by Reuters in its report as “the deadliest police station” in Quezon City with 108 deaths in anti-drug operations from July 2016 to June 2017.
The new CIDG-7 chief, however, refused to comment on the controversial investigative report by Reuters that came out last December 19.
“As chief of CIDG, it is not my job to make plans because the PNP (Philippine National Police) already has its plans, and the CIDG’s tasks are to apprehend wanted criminals, stop organized crime, and go after those with loose firearms, among many other law enforcement objectives,” Patay told reporters in Cebuano.
He also assured the public that under his command, CIDG operations would not become synonymous to his surname Patay, which literally means “death” in English.
