THE PHILIPPINE National Police needs 60,000 new police recruits, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas was reported to have said. This is to meet the ideal policeman-to-population ratio of 1:500 and to maximize police visibility.
In our province, police visibility is not lacking. You feel secure walking the downtown streets even during late hours. However, here in the National Capital Region, it’s different. You’re oftentimes suspicious of everyone including cops. Especially of policemen. They are in news headlines as perpetrators of crimes. For example, in an episode of Failon Ngayon, police involvement in various crimes was noted to be rampant, with NCR cops constituting a considerable percentage of the “rotten apples,” so to speak. Nevertheless, I believe there are still some principled cops who remain dedicated to their work. And, that’s what everyone (I suppose) would want every cop to be.
I once thought of applying to be a member of PNP but was discouraged when a policeman, a friend, told me that extortion has become quite a “habit” among cops, even new police officers do it, many of them without compunction. So I figured, maybe there is something wrong with their system, particularly when it comes to the aspect of values formation. Though values formation has a deep root, it is during college, when we are already adults, that our sense of right and wrong is fully sharpened. We are asked during this time: What kind of person we want ourselves to be in the future, and why in the first place would we want to be that person, in my case, to be a cop?
I therefore suggest that values formation be into a major program/subject in the college curriculum, or if one already exists, that it be improved. Furthermore, with regard to police recruitment, applicants should be screened well. And their training should not only focus on operational and physical improvement but also on values formation. Because no matter how routinary their work may be, conscience should always be a cop’s guiding light.
—ELEANOR D. OBORRO, yayeno@gmail.com