It’s a small, even trivial matter given how Cebu residents are preoccupied with the spate of killings that resulted in the deaths of some law enforcers.
But an order issued by Senior Supt. Royina Garma, Cebu City police chief, to remove the air-conditioning units inside patrol vehicles should perhaps remind police personnel where their priorities lie.
The order came amid a P50,000 additional cash bounty being offered for information on rogue cops or those that engage in irregularities like summary executions.
The order came after a concerned citizen complained on Garma’s Facebook page that he saw a policeman sleeping inside a patrol car at night with the vehicle’s air-conditioning turned on.
Garma’s order covers 22 patrol cars issued to 11 precincts under her watch.
The order may be too little, too late as police officers who detest patrol duty always find ways to make themselves comfortable rather than patrol the streets looking for troublemakers or in light of the killings, the perpetrators that continue to roam the streets scot-free.
If Garma and her superiors continue to insist that the police have no involvement in the killings of drug targets and suspects or were not sanctioned to do so, then one possible, visible reason why the killings continue is that her people are sleeping on the job.
But that is just one of many things that is wrong with the police today and this problem had been in existence since even before and during the time of former PNP Director General Roland “Bato” dela Rosa, whose public sermons of erring police officers were scoffed at by the public at large.
That regardless of the rise in killings of drug suspects and the questionable circumstances surrounding the rising number of deaths of drug targets who were always reported to have “fought back” (nanlaban) even if they were outnumbered and outgunned, public confidence in the public remains fragile at best.
When people see police officers preferring to sleep inside air-conditioned patrol cars rather than doing their assignments despite the increase in their salaries and pensions which the national government is finding difficult to fund under an ever expanding budget, one has to ask if their police are either trustworthy enough or deserve the bigger paychecks they’re receiving courtesy of our taxes.
Garma’s order may also be in anticipation of the reduced budget allocated by Cebu City Hall for their maintenance, equipment and operations.
In a way, that’s a good thing because it will force the city police to work harder and be on alert for any criminal activity, including those killings that they should have stopped a long time ago.