Last night’s shootout in Quezon City wherein three alleged carjackers were killed should be enough reason for PNP Chief Jesus Verzosa to take a long, hard look at his agency.
This early some people are already calling the whole incident a rubout. They can’t be blamed though because the whole thing was caught on tape and it was a disturbing site. ABS-CBN’s TV Patrol aired exclusive video of what appears to be a police officer firing his gun inside the suspects’ vehicle at close range. Upon seeing the video, even National Police Commission vice-chairman Eduardo Escueta reportedly pointed out that the personnel involved did something they shouldn’t have.
It’s no secret many if not most police officers are abusive and act as if they are above the law. Clearly it is because they are armed.
In line with this blog’s thrust of providing both constructive criticism and possible solutions, may I suggest a number of radical steps that may help improve the PNP.
- Keep all police officers over the age of 40 away from field duty. Ask them to retire, dismiss them or assign them to office duties instead. Just keep them off the streets.
- Replace the guns of police officers over the age of 40 with nightsticks or any other non-lethal weapon
- Impose a higher educational requirement for would-be policemen
- Require all police officers to undergo behavior modification.
- Dismiss all discourteous and arrogant police officers.
- Dismiss all police officers that have vices. Make having vices grounds for automatic dismissal
- Require all police personnel to attend daily mass or any other equivalent religious ceremony
What I’m driving at with these suggestions is that the PNP should be an agency composed of decent, upright, educated, law-abiding, and God-fearing people. It shouldn’t be manned by goons, scalawags and most especially police officers who have already become hardened by violence.
The powers that be should really consider these suggestions or come up with their own ideas. In any case, I just hope they do something about this disturbing trend of lethal violence.
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