The current congressional investigation on the drug war, where Ex Police Colonel Royina Garma revealed the practices of rewarding police officers for the killing of drug suspects, the appointment and promotion of key personnel to deliver on the "quotas" (required number of deaths and arrests) and other operational matters, show the details of how police was corrupted by ex President Rodrigo Duterte.
In 2017, at the height of the Drug War, I wrote this piece to lament the current state of Philippine Policing. The current revelations support these conclusions: police officers became an instrument of killings.
The death of Policing as a Profession in the Philippines
On August 15, 2017, in one big sweep, 32 drug suspects were killed by the Philippine National Police (PNP) officers in the province of Bulacan. That day has the dubious recognition as the most number of deaths in a single day in the continuing war on drugs. Dubbed as “one time-big time” by the Bulacan Provincial Police, it was praised by President Duterte as an efficient implementation of his order. In jest, he said that he wanted more “32 deaths a day” like this. And like clockwork, the police responded with 26 more deaths in Manila, 17 in Cavite, 4 in Caloocan, and 2 in Marikina two days thereafter.
The police have now become the personal killers of President Duterte. They had willingly embraced their roles as executioners. The police have now become systematic and systemic in their killings. It is no longer an individual but rather an institutional engagement. It marks the death of policing as a profession in the Philippines.
When the Philippine Public Safety College (PPSC) took control of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) and the Philippine National Training Institute (PNTI) in 1991, the main goal was to professionalize the police officers. The PNPA serves as the premiere academy which trains the future commissioned officer corps with its rigorous four-year program. The PNTI, on the other hand, serves as the six month-training center for the non-commissioned officers and requires its applicants to be graduates of a four-year bachelor’s degree prior to admission. In these two academic centers, cadets were instructed to follow the rule of law, to respect due process, and to accord suspects their rights. They were specifically mentored on the rules of engagement, the protocols on the use of deadly force, the approaches to situational control, the mechanisms to preserve forensic evidence and other state of the art and lawful investigation techniques. A continuing ladderized education program was also instituted to upgrade their managerial skills and to popularize the use of merit in the promotion system. These upgraded training and educational requirements, coupled with the introduction of modern policing concepts like “community policing,” “comp-stat policing,” “problem-oriented policing,” ‘smart-policing,” “human rights based approach policing,” “gender-sensitivity,” “child-friendly,” “environmental policing” and others, have gradually gained traction in the PNP. Slowly but surely, police officers were becoming more professionalized, more responsive to citizen complaints, and more effective in their response to crime. In due time, young professionalized police officers would refuse the orders of older higher ranked police officers to commit human rights abuses or to engaged in corrupt practices.
These inspired efforts towards professionalization stemmed from the nefarious state of the police after years of serving as the Martial Law implementers. For more than two decades, the police worked with impunity— they brutalized citizens who aired their political dissent against the dictator and they were treated as personal henchmen of the local mayors. The culture of impunity created during the Martial Law period was deeply ingrained, such that, the post-Marcos innovations, though making a headway, were continually frustrated. Coupled with the predatory nature of the political elites, which, unfortunately, were untouched by the post-Edsa revolution, the local politicians continually utilized the police as their personal henchmen. Despite years of innovations and trainings, the police force still suffered from inefficiency, corruption, and inequity. Many police officers were low morale, as they seemingly cannot implement their roles as protectors of citizens from crimes. Additionally, the police, as an institution, was continually criticized and maligned for the human rights abuses conducted by their individual erring members. These gargantuan problems, notwithstanding, police reform instituted after the downfall of the Marcos regime was headed to the right direction.
The ascension of Rodrigo Duterte to the presidency has re-directed and destroyed the gains of police reforms in the past 30 years. Powered by the moralistic belief that drug use had corrupted the Philippine society, President Duterte had coopted the people’s frustration against the criminal justice system and used it to implement a personalistic and haphazard vision of reform. While he correctly understood that the police force is weak due to the stranglehold of local politicians, he nevertheless gave them a license to kill without following appropriate police procedures. While he correctly understood that the police force is corrupt due to the frustrated efforts towards reforms, he nonetheless utilized these same corrupt police officers to physically eliminate his perceived problem—the drug users, using the same corrupt means. The long-suffering and long-criticized police officers suddenly found meaning their police work, though clearly ill-advised—they can now brutally kill a town mayor who, for years, had maligned their occupation. Police morale is high, though clearly misguided—they can count on a President who promised immunity while they aggressively and violently perform their perceived righteous duties as police officers.
While we cannot begrudge the intentions of the President, a drug-free and crime-free Philippines, he has transformed the police as the biggest criminal institution in the Philippines. Professional police officers, those who were successfully trained and educated in the proper legal and moral police work, are stymied by the sudden but mistaken boost of morale of their fellow police officers. Instructors and mentors in the PPSC, PNPA and PNTI can only lament in frustration—this is not what they taught in the academy and training center. The top brass of the PNP, those who have remaining qualms on where the PNP is headed, are intimidated; else they will be transferred to low prestige assignments or be suspected as drug protectors themselves. Individual police officers are either forced to quit the police profession or to join the slaughter of their fellow Filipinos. Philippine policing is systemically and systematically perverted.
The Filipino people has the misguided belief that this is the rebirth of Filipino policing. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. This is the death of policing as a profession in the Philippines.
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