In September 2017, 62 members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Caloocan City were sacked after some of them were implicated in a robbery and others were held liable for the deaths of teenagers amid the government’s so-called “war against drugs.”
Months later, in December, President Rodrigo Duterte announced that he would fire up at least 90 cops for involvement in corruption.
In February 2018, the PNP announced that 151 cops had been dismissed for illegal drug use.
Another four policemen were fired in July after they were found to have been involved in the strip search of drug suspects in Makati City.
Earlier this month, allegations that all Talisay City, Cebu, police personnel were involved in recycling confiscated illegal drugs led to their temporary removal for retraining.
The other day, Chief Supt. Debold Sinas, director of Central Visayas police immediately relieved the commander and officers of the Ronda Police Station. They were on duty when Ronda Mayor Mariano Blanco was shot dead.
An investigation is ongoing to determine whether they committed lapses in responding to the shooting of the mayor.
These developments, instead of demoralizing police officers, should be welcomed by them.
As a tree needs pruning to remain healthy, so our crop of law enforcers need cleansing to regain public trust.
Cebu City Police Director Royina Garma has registered her displeasure with the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for filing charges against her subordinates in connection with the death by stray bullet of four-year-old Bladen Skyler Abatayo.
A more professional response would be to accept the suit as a test of the uprightness of the city’s police force.
If they had nothing to do with the boy’s killing, they will be cleared by the court, and a caustic attitude to the NBI is an exercise in counterproductivity.
To resent being checked by a government agency is unbecoming of a public servant.
Among the police, it only betrays a sense of entitlement that expects unlimited presumption of regularly of all their activity when the historical evidence, especially under this administration, exposes imaginings of an immaculate police force as high delusion.
Cops should not be demoralized when bad eggs are being removed from their ranks; not if there is no reason for such a purge to make them start a count down to their termination.
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