Soon after Sen. Richard Gordon noted that at least 7,000 people had been arrested in line with President Rodrigo Duterte’s instructions for police to round up loiterers, the President denied saying that he ordered their arrest.
He claimed that no one was being arrested.
Given the rise in total number of persons held by the police to at least 9,000, his claim is absurd.
“No one is being arrested, anyway,” Duterte said. “I just don’t want you using the streets to loiter.”
Here lies the problem. The police are tying their law enforcement work to the preferences of the President.
Last time we checked, governance is not all about anyone’s random wishes.
Duterte may not want people to loiter all they want.
But he is not free to arbitrarily limit people’s freedom of movement, especially not if they are merely roaming around or shirtless in a locale where there are no ordinances against loitering or shirtlessness.
If he really wants to go tough on crime, he should use his humongous intelligence budget to strategize the arrest of members of criminal syndicates and filthy rich drug lords.
Duterte is the President. He is not a mayor or a governor who chiefly carries the burden of enforcing local ordinances. He should stop behaving as if the entire archipelago were some small mayoral jurisdiction for micromanagement.
The President has stated that he did not order the arrest of loiterers.
So why are cops still going after them? Do they have nothing better to do than legislate by enforcement the criminality of shirtlessness and of wandering around?
The answer: Policemen are eager to impress the President who is highly invested in maintaining a Dirty Harry image.
Have our leaders lost their marbles?
Presidential Spokesperson Herminio Roque Jr. dared critics to go to the Supreme Court to challenge Malacañang’s anti-loitering campaign.
Things would be easier if Roque had underscored the lack of an order to arrest loiterers.
Why should critics indulge him and have recourse to a High Court whose majority has proven to be pliant and subservient to the Malacañang occupant?
The answer: the administration is too prideful to admit that the consequences of the anti-loitering drive — the death of Genesis Agoncillo under police custody, the unnecessary arrest of Ariel Morco, the detention of two friends who were only waiting for a third — expose it as pure, unadulterated oppression.