PNP a failed organization

The nation's morale is at its lowest level as every branch and instrumentality of government is under trial for being faithless to the rightness of governance. First, we had impeached the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for criminal offenses unbecoming of his office; then we find three of the senators who impeached him in prison now for offenses graver than what they found him guilty of; then we have the most senior member of the Sandiganbayan, the nation's special court to try corrupt government officials, dismissed from office by the Supreme Court for—what else?—corruption. Not to be outdone, we have the Vice President and innumerable members of Congress and the Philippine National Police (PNP) chief under investigation for plunder and corruption charges too, not to mention that a former chief PNP is now incarcerated due also to plunder and corruption.
 With these repulsive deeds of people in high offices of government occurring with regularity , should we wonder why repulsive crimes in the lower strata of society and government are now structured and infused in our daily lives? While corruption in government remains unabated, people also get murdered every day and street crimes flourish endlessly, the perpetrators becoming more audacious and fearless, their felonious acts foreshadowed perhaps by their belief that criminality should be shared alike among those in government and civilian felons. What is so brutally fearsome is the regularity of police officers involved in crimes. Citizens don't know any more if the policeman next to them is their savior or their attacker. Just revisit the massacre in Atimonan, Quezon led by a police colonel where they murdered and robbed 13 people—including a PNP colonel also—of about P100 million in their possession. And how about those two unsuspecting traders from Mindanao carrying P2 million that were robbed and kidnapped in broad daylight In Mandaluyong by seven members of the Quezon City police? And how about also that group of policemen from Manila that extorted money from a legitimate businessman whom they threatened to arrest and file charges against on trumped up evidence? And how about also that international race car driver who was allegedly murdered by a gun-for-hire policeman; and that policeman in Pangasinan too who went on a shooting rampage inside a high school compound, killing three innocent victims? And the world's memory is still fresh from the Luneta carnage a couple of years back perpetrated by a police captain in uniform where some innocent Hong Kong tourists were senselessly killed and maimed by him because of his disenchantment with his own organization that is the Philippine National Police.  The citizens' trust in their police must be on its barrel-scraping level now given all these police-perpetrated crimes that are so shocking to the public conscience. But there is no greater public conscience-shocking police-sponsored crime than the crime of planting of evidence on an unsuspecting citizen. This crime happened right here in Laoag, under the sponsorship of the Laoag City command of the Philippine National Police.  Mr. Marwin Calina, a cockfight breeding trader Laoag resident. was almost victimized by this morbid modus operandi of devious policemen last month, were not for sheer luck on his part and a little screw up done by the civilian asset they had hired to nail him down. The Laoag City police served a search warrant on that day at his residence in Laoag under a judicial deposition of that same civilian asset. Fortunately for Calina, notwithstanding that the police spent a good three hours searching for the "evidence" at the place where their asset had planted it, they came out empty-handed because the “planter” did not place the "evidence" perfectly where it was to be found. The failed search would have been dismissed by Calina as a mere unfortunate mistake of information were not for his guilt-ridden brother-in-law's voluntary confession to him that he had planted some P500,000 worth of illegal drugs provided him by the police in the place the cops were intensively searching that day: to give way to his arrest and incarceration without bail—given the volume of the "evidence." With this shocking revelation of his own brother-in-law, who was that civilian asset hired by a certain SPO4 belonging to the Laoag PNP Intelligence Division and who lives with his family as well in the same house that Calina lives, Calina readily contacted his lawyer and the NBI who were presented with the planted evidence, complimented by his brother-in-law's deposition about his relationship with the Laoag PNP and substantiated firmly by some revealing text messages from that SPO4 legitimizing the existence of an unholy alliance between them that is trained against Calina.  We are vehemently opposed to the proliferation of illegal drugs in our country, but to send people to jail on fabricated evidence is more than lawlessness. What we want to know therefore is how many citizens have gone to jail on planted evidence by the police and how many more will go on this basis? This police culture is highly repulsive and dangerous. It is even more despicable than what the former and current PNP commanding generals are accused of for in their cases, no one will go to jail but the guilty, which is them, as opposed to Calina's case wherein he could be languishing in jail now without bail on fabricated evidence. This is the highest scale that the mockery of justice could reach and the authors of this insidious act must be brought to justice beyond compromise.  What happened to Calina is a diametric contrast to what happened to a certain Julius Alupay, a resident of Lanao, Bangui, Ilocos Norte, this year. Alupay, an established drug dealer in Bangui, was caught in flagrante delicto by the Bangui police selling prohibited drugs. He escaped prosecution nonetheless because the confiscated drugs tested negative at the Ilocos Norte Provincial Police laboratory. What is so challenging to the human intellect is why Alupay's customers kept going back to him to buy drugs—as the Bangui police intelligence report substantiates—if what he was selling them were not the real macoy?  Who were made stupid here? Alupay's customers or the Bangui police that had painstakingly shadowed Alupay's illegal activity for quite some time then? Having said this, I still want to take my hats off to Sr. Inspector Joseph Baltazar, the chief of police of the Bangui PNP, for his excellent and professional way of running his station.  With a criminal police culture as we have, how can the citizens of a country sleep peacefully at night or walk assuredly in the streets without thinking that their supposed protectors from criminal attacks are themselves their attackers?  How can a citizen carrying a considerable sum of money or valuable walk in the street without fearing that some policemen will accost him and impute some conjured up offenses on him just so he could surrender his valuables to them? What makes this police culture doubly sad is that it is dragging too the honest and well-meant cops, like Sr. Inspector Baltazar, into this ugly perception about our peace and order enforcers. For there are yet many of this kind in the PNP's rank and file, obscured effectively however by the crimes involving no less than their commanding generals down to their colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants and SPO4's.   Criminal impunity is a sad reality in our lives these days, and the hearts of the good citizens are shattered by the brutal knowledge that the very people who make the law, interpret the law and enforce the law are on the lead in the slew of law-breakers in this country. The scale of the administration's drive against corrupt officials in government evokes my respect but the stench from Camp Crame's rotten eggs are overwhelming and arrogantly lingers around, yet unchecked—requiring thus a drastic solution. Whereas the PNP has now become a failed national organization, this column believes that for the good of the law-abiding citizens of this country, this organization terminates the soonest and have the policing responsibility reverted back to the local government units. For our policemen have been falsely indoctrinated into a belief that they are an independent and licentious national organization, armed with guns and the liberty to do anything that pleases them.