“Since it was activated on January 29, 1991, the PNP has brought so much shame and damage to the nation that not a few quarters are beginning to believe that the Republic would be better—much better—off without the police.”
By: Dan Mariano
Language historians tell us that the term “police” originated in ancient Greece where the word polissoos referred to a person charged with “guarding a city.”
The polissoos maintained public order and enforced the orders of democratically elected magistrates—giving the citizens of the various Greek city-states peace of mind. In the case of the modern-day Philippines, however, the police have turned out to be a big reason—if not the biggest reason—for public insecurity.
Hardly a week passes without the Philippine National Police (PNP) being linked to some irregularity, its officers accused of practically every kind of criminal offense.
The other day, Sen. Franklin Drilon proposed to trim budget allocations for the PNP following the discovery of over 2,000 “ghost pensioners” who for years have stolen billions of pesos in taxpayers’ money from state coffers.
Last week, charges of plunder were reportedly filed against several persons—including Jose Miguel Arroyo, the former president’s husband and his police protégés—over the sale to the PNP of used helicopters, which they had allegedly passed off as brand-new. There was speculation, however, that the PNP complaints were part of a conspiracy to prevent the culprits from presenting themselves before an ongoing Senate inquiry as well as to intimidate some of them who had already offered to turn state witness.
At least four more senior PNP officers allegedly approved without authority the purchase of 16 defective and unserviceable patrol boats worth P4.9 million last year supposedly for the Police Maritime Group.
Many other cases involving PNP personnel had bloody outcomes.
Last August, the nation was reminded of the massacre of eight visitors from Hong Kong as well as the injury several others suffered after a PNP officer took them hostage then ran amuck during a botched attempt by other cops to rescue the victims.
On 23 November 2009, 58 people—including 34 media workers—were kidnapped and slaughtered in Maguindanao province on orders of a local political warlord clan. Not only did police fail to stop the merciless attack on unarmed civilians, 61 so-called lawmen allegedly took part in the killings, alongside armed flunkeys of the warlords.
Also in 2009, video of a Manila police officer torturing an inmate was aired on nationwide TV. Months later, another cop was accused of raping a female detainee right inside the Manila Police headquarters.
In 2008, ranking PNP officers and their wives were intercepted in Moscow after one of them was found in possession of 105,000 euros, which none of them had bothered to declare with Russian customs.
Since it was activated on January 29, 1991, the PNP has brought so much shame and damage to the nation that not a few quarters are beginning to believe that the Republic would be better—much better—off without the police.
The PNP has failed to crush organized crime—whether it involves syndicated carjacking, armed robbery, kidnap for ransom, white slavery or drug trafficking—giving rise to the suspicion that these same gangs include or are even headed by policemen.
The cops cannot even seem to deal with street crime. The daily tabloids are full of reports about hapless citizens victimized by muggers, pickpockets, snatchers and other petty crooks who never seem to get caught.
Various foreign governments regularly issue “travel advisories” telling their citizens not to venture to the Philippines—indicating how poorly the authorities in the United States, Britain, Australia and other countries regard the capability of the PNP. Those governments cannot rely on Filipino cops to secure their nationals from terrorist attacks, among other crimes.
Of Filipino cops it is often said: If they are not corrupt, they are inept. All too often, however, they are both.
Journalist Alan C. Robles, in an article recently published in D+C magazine, alluded to a UNDP study, which showed that in 2004 over 20,000 PNP officers did not actually have service firearms. “Those who did were issued only 28 rounds of ammunition for one year, with [10 more bullets] for marksmanship training.”
In 2004 too, the entire PNP needed an estimated 25,000 handheld radios, but it had only 2,280, the UNDP noted.
Robles—who now reportedly teaches online journalism at the GIZ International Institute for Journalism in Berlin—also alluded to a paper that “surfaced” last January, which claimed that “in nine of the country’s 15 regions, nearly 80?% of police investigators have had no formal training.”
No wonder then that the PNP—just like its precursor agencies—has consistently been rated poorly by the public.
Surveys conducted by respected pollsters like Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia reflect the belief of ordinary Filipinos that the PNP is a corrupt agency, second only to the notorious public works department.
The results of other opinion polls show levels of public confidence in the police hovering from “bad” to “very bad.” When its rating somehow swung to “poor” a few years back, Camp Crame made a big deal out of it and boasted that the PNP’s public image was “improving,” Robles noted.
The PNP was the offshoot of a merger of the Philippine Constabulary (PC) and the Integrated National Police (INP). The PC was a branch of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and became notorious for its eager enforcement of martial law proclamation issued in 1972 by then-President Ferdinand Marcos. The INP grouped together the various local police units maintained by municipal and city governments that had been run along civilian lines.
The PNP, as provided for in the 1987 Constitution, is a civilian organization but many of its high-ranking officials came from the PC and graduated from the Philippine Military Academy. To this day, many of them prefer to be addressed as “generals” and “colonels”—and they continue to behave in the same imperious manner of the old, militaristic PC officer corps.
Not that the newer generation of cops are turning out to be any better. Just recently, video surfaced of the “hazing”—again, a la AFP—suffered by police recruits at the hands of their superiors. Such vicious initiation rites only serve to turn the men and women charged with keeping peace into brutes.
P-Noy appointee Director General Raul Bacalzo, who has evidently done little to turn the PNP around and make it a genuinely professional organization, is due to retire on Friday.
Few observers are confident that his successor would prove to be any better.
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