If there is one agency in the country that faces huge challenges -- that would be no other than the Philippine National Police (PNP). Highly demoralized, embattled and unappreciated, some members of the police force tend to compensate their condition by corruption, indolence or abuse.
Remember the alleged shoot-out in Quezon City last month? The arresting police officers exchanged gunfights with suspected car thieves. There is no problem there. This is usual business with criminals. But the incident that followed the gunfight shocked the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). The ABS-CBN news crew clearly documented the scene after the shooting. The policemen went near the car, opened its doors, fired some bullets towards the alleged criminals still inside the vehicle and pulled one out. As soon as the suspect touched the road, one of the policemen fired more bullets to the wounded and obviously defenseless suspect.
This is not a movie clip. It is real. It happened amidst a country that supposedly believes on democracy and the rights of the sovereign people.
But this could be isolated although I will bet a cent that this scenario always happen but it passes through public scrutiny because of lack of documentation.
Reading the national dailies recently, I stumbled upon an article saying that almost half of our police force in the country have no guns. Read: Out of 125,000 police officers nationwide, only 73, 758 have guns. The rest are still praying that they will be issued one before they retire.
Every year, about 3,000 policemen are recruited. This means additional annual provisions for PNP.
The tough question though is whether or not all policemen deserve to be issued a gun. Of course, they are. They are supposed to use these guns to fight criminals and protect the civilians. But what if they cross the line and use the firearms to abuse their authority? Then what should be done?
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