Torre’s Takedown: How the Philippines Axed Its Rogue Reformer

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — August 26, 2025

A Sacking Dressed Up as “Procedure”

In the Philippines, where political loyalty is the currency of power, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has decided the only “direction” needing a course correction is one that veers away from a police chief who actually did his job. On August 26, 2025, Marcos sacked Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief General Nicolas Torre III, barely three months into his tenure. The official excuse? A bland “change in direction” and some procedural hiccups. The raw truth? Torre, a rare outsider in the Philippine Military Academy (PMA)-dominated PNP, was a Molotov cocktail hurled at Manila’s entrenched patronage networks—and his explosion was predictably short-lived.

The Fall of a Reformer: A Tragedy in Three Months

Torre’s story is a Shakespearean tragedy of reform snuffed out by the gods of Philippine politics. Appointed in May 2025 as the first non-PMA graduate to lead the PNP, Torre wasn’t just a cop; he was a disruptor. He didn’t enforce the law—he weaponized it, orchestrating the headline-grabbing arrests of former President Rodrigo Duterte and televangelist Apollo Quiboloy, briefly propping up Marcos’s flagging approval ratings after a midterm electoral thrashing. His brash, populist style—sacking Metro Manila commanders for sluggish response times, challenging Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte to a “charity boxing match,” and calling out pro-Duterte vloggers for peddling fake crime stats—was part performance art, part accountability crusade. He demanded five-minute response times, cracked down on “tuklaw” drugs, and pushed fitness standards for a force too often seen as lethargic. For a fleeting moment, Filipinos glimpsed a police chief who dared to police.

The Flimsy Excuse: “Procedure” as a Political Weapon

Malacañang wants us to swallow the line that Torre’s ouster was about procedure. He overreached, they claim, by reshuffling senior officers—most notably demoting his deputy, Lieutenant General Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr., to a dead-end post in Western Mindanao—without clearance from the National Police Commission (Napolcom) or Marcos himself. Senator Panfilo Lacson, a former PNP chief, clucked that Torre “acted beyond his authority,” and Napolcom, chaired by Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, swiftly reversed the reshuffle. The President, we’re told, was merely exercising his prerogative to restore “institutional cohesion.” How convenient. It’s surely just a coincidence that Nartatez, a PMA Class of 1992 graduate with professional ties to Senator Imee Marcos and political alignment with Duterte allies through her network, was swiftly appointed PNP Officer-in-Charge. Nothing says “administrative necessity” like swapping a reformist maverick for a connected insider, does it?

The Ugly Truth: Power Crushes Reform

Let’s strip away the bureaucratic veneer. Torre’s sacking wasn’t about paperwork—it was a calculated hit on a man who threatened the Philippines’ sacred cow: patronage. As a Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) graduate, Torre was a direct challenge to the PMA’s iron grip on PNP leadership, a culture so entrenched it’s practically a state religion. His aggressive reforms—firing eight Metro Manila commanders for tardiness, enforcing fitness mandates, and hauling in heavyweights like Duterte and Quiboloy—weren’t just policy; they were a declaration of war on the old guard. When he reassigned Nartatez—a senior PMA general—to Western Mindanao, he triggered a rare public clash with Napolcom. The move was bold, indeed provocative. But it was ultimately reversed, and Remulla continued to frame Torre as trusted and capable—signaling a professional, not personal, disconnect.

The political optics are a masterclass in cynicism. Torre’s arrests of Duterte and Quiboloy were public relations gold, but they also made him a lightning rod. The Dutertes, still a political juggernaut, didn’t appreciate their patriarch in handcuffs, and Imee Marcos’s public applause for Nartatez’s appointment reeks of factional score-settling. One might naively hope a president could stand by his appointee, especially one delivering results. But Marcos, ever the political tightrope walker, seems to have decided that appeasing PMA loyalists and Duterte allies trumps backing a reformer. It’s surely just a coincidence that Torre’s ouster aligns with Marcos’s need to manage a fractured administration and a simmering Duterte-Marcos feud that could ignite the streets.

The Collateral Damage: Filipinos’ Trust in Tatters

For ordinary Filipinos, this isn’t just elite infighting; it’s a betrayal of hope. Torre’s reforms, however theatrical, offered a rare glimpse of a PNP that might actually serve the public. When a Quezon City cop could be fired for a five-minute delay or a former president could face arrest, it whispered that maybe the law wasn’t just for the little guy. Now, with Torre gone and no criminal charges to justify his exit, the message is brutal: challenge the powerful, and you’ll be out faster than a Davao mayor can throw a punch. Public trust, already eroded by decades of corruption, takes another blow. On X, Filipinos vent confusion and despair—former Senator Leila de Lima is “baffled,” while others murmur about coups. The PNP’s morale is also collateral damage: officers who rallied behind Torre’s push for accountability now face a return to the safe, predictable arms of PMA networks.

This isn’t just about Torre. It’s about a system that punishes those who disrupt it. If Torre’s sin was insubordination, his real crime was refusing to play by the Philippines’ unwritten rules: don’t rock the boat, don’t humiliate the elites, and don’t make the PMA look obsolete. His sacking sets a chilling precedent: future PNP chiefs will hesitate to take on powerful figures or shake up the ranks. The rule of law, already a fragile concept in a country where flood control failures go unpunished while reformers are axed, is once again subordinated to political expediency.

A Demand for Truth—or at Least a Better Lie

Perhaps Malacañang could grace us with an explanation more substantial than a press release better suited to a horoscope. If Torre’s removal was truly about procedure, let’s see the receipts—every memo, every Napolcom ruling, every reason why a man who arrested a former president was suddenly unfit to lead. Transparency isn’t a luxury; it’s a lifeline to preserve what little faith Filipinos have in their institutions. Marcos must also lock in Torre’s successful reforms—those five-minute response times, those fitness standards—before they’re buried with the man who championed them. And while we’re at it, let’s untangle the mess of Napolcom versus PNP authority to avoid future clashes that turn governance into a soap opera. Civil society and Congress should keep a hawk’s eye on whether this signals a broader retreat from accountability, especially as the Duterte-Marcos rift threatens to destabilize the nation.

The Circus Rolls On

Torre’s brief tenure was a daring experiment in what happens when a police chief takes his mandate too seriously. He dared to police the powerful, demand performance, and challenge a system that thrives on loyalty over merit. For that, he was shown the door, replaced by a PMA insider who knows the script. The Philippines’ flirtation with reform has ended—not with a bang, but with a obedient bow from the old guard. Power, as always, shields itself, leaving Filipinos to wonder if their police will ever serve them as fiercely as they serve their patrons.