Internal cleansing is a term we often hear every time a new Chief of the Philippine National Police assumes office. It is similar to politicians promising to eradicate poverty when they win but as always, poverty is still prevalent.
Police chief Oscar Albayalde is promising to root out and fire all scalawags in police uniform. But I suspect that it is going to be a hard slug for him. President Duterte as we know has a different approach to this problem as he demonstrated when he gave a sermon to dozens of policemen brought to him in Malacanang three days ago. He wanted to slap them and he threatened them that if they do not change their ways, they might not live long enough to regret it. Something to that effect.
Maybe this is the best way to make these people understand the problem. Over the last several months, the problem of policemen getting involved in serious crimes have been hogging the headlines.
Just a few days ago, several policemen from Taguig were arrested for their involvement in kidnap for ransom. Camp Crame said that since July 2016, some 2,181 policemen of various ranks had been fired for involvement in the illegal drug trade notwithstanding the aggressive policy of the government to get rid of the problem. This should give the public an idea of how difficult the problem is. If the enforcers themselves cannot resist getting involved in the illegal drug trade, how much more the public? Time to change strategy and tactics?
Camp Crame also came out with the figure of 6,401 administrative cases being resolved which means that those personnel involved have been meted various punishments ranging from suspension, demotion, reprimand and others. What Camp Crame did not release is the figure for the number of pending administrative cases which I suspect must be considerable. What is bothersome is that many of those policemen getting involved in crimes are the PO1s —the recently graduated policemen or rookies. This is supposed to be the group who should still be very idealistic, possessing the fervor to do well. Instead, they throw away their careers. As they say, sayang.
There must be something terribly wrong when policemen getting arrested for crime are mostly rookies. Police Chief Albayalde wants a more thorough vetting on the backgrounds of police applicants. This is a step in the right direction but a lot more has to be done. There must be a review on the whole recruiting process and the training of these recruits. We have often heard of the plan for the PNP to train their own recruits but up to now, this has not happened. The curriculum and training facilities must also be reviewed and upgraded. For instance I pass by a police training center almost every day. What I noticed is that the trainees stay inside the classroom from eight to four every day with the occasional breaks listening to the lectures of an instructor day in and day out.
In this day and age, it is not advisable to have classroom instructions for eight hours every day. Academic instructions are limited at the most to two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon. I hardly see these trainees doing practical exercises like drill and ceremonies. These probably explains the disappointing way police personnel march during parade and reviews where they are not coordinated. In the old days, recruits were given only three years when they enlist. Today, once someone is accepted for recruit training, this person is good for at least thirty years of service.
The old practice should be brought back because it has many benefits. It provides an automatic cleansing process. Notoriously undesirable police elements can simply be refused reenlistment. The practice of yearly physical examination should also be brought back so that fitness for continued police duty could be assessed and evaluated both physically and emotionally.
There are indeed many ways to skin a cat. One problem on reform is the short stint of the PNP Chief. Often, this is limited at the most to two years. Hardly enough time to accomplish much. But reform should be a continuing process not dependent on the Chief alone. The reform process should involve the whole police leadership from the Secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government who is concurrent Chairman of the National Police Commission, the PNP chief down to the Regional and Provincial Directors level.
The whole Police leadership structure must be encouraged to believe that they have a stake in the reform agenda. In the early years of the PNP in the 1990s, a lot of time was spent in developing a vision for what the PNP should look like and what kind of police culture should emerge from the ashes of the defunct Philippine Constabulary. It is now almost 30 years since the PNP came into being but judging from the way the PNP has developed over these years, what has evolved is not very encouraging. This must be a challenge to our police leaders to develop a professional police force which can be judged as one of the best in Asia.
Many may not realize it but the police leadership is now in the process of being passed from the graduates of the Philippine Military Academy to the graduates of the Philippine National Police Academy which means a great deal to the discipline and culture of the police. By about 2023 no PMA graduates will be left in the PNP. How this transition will affect the PNP as a whole is hard to say but it should be incumbent upon the current PNP leadership not to ignore this issue.