PNP should apply command responsibility in anti-‘jueteng’ drive

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Oscar Albayalde’s warning that police officers protecting “jueteng” operations or not doing anything to combat the activity in their jurisdictions will be relieved (“Albayalde warns ‘jueteng’ cops,” Inquirer.net, 7/30/19) will not dent the operation of the illegal numbers game. We have heard the warning ad nauseam in the past, and jueteng went on merrily.

If the Duterte administration is serious about terminating, or at the very least significantly reducing, illegal gambling, the order should also apply to all PNP commanders, including the PNP chief himself, so that each time a jueteng arrest is made, the concerned police commanders up to the PNP chief himself will be sacked.

First, where’s the logic and fairness in penalizing chiefs of police protecting jueteng operations or failing to stop them, but letting their supervisors go scot-free? It’s the same offense and failure, so why punish only those in the lower rungs?

Second, it is foolish to assume that promotion to general would automatically make a police officer impervious to the lure of easy money from illegal gambling activities.

I am sure that such a measure will have a strong deterrent effect, because no general in his right mind, much less a PNP chief, would want to end his career with a scandal over something as cheap as illegal gambling.

ESTANISLAO ALBANO JR.,

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