WHAT kind of policemen do we have who need to be told, over and over again, reminded from here to eternity, that they are not allowed to accept gifts or bribes, not to take what is not theirs? Do they have to be told to wear their uniform with spiff and pride?
Those orders issued by the PNP OIC and the NCRPO chief to all policemen of the 190,000-strong force sounded so juvenile you’d think they were addressing a class of high school kids being prepared for summer camp.
Cops are not to accept bribes in cash or kind, not to use recovered vehicles and motorcycles as if these were their personal possessions. Not to be seen in a bar, casino, or cockpit. They were reminded, once again and going back to Senator Ping Lacson’s time as PNP chief, to stay away from the golf course. No golf, no goofing.
Golf is for gentlemen of leisure. Even a tycoon like Dennis Uy is too busy making another billion to waste his time walking on grass trying to shoot a tiny ball into 18 holes, an exercise that’s not cheap and takes four hours. Until a PNP officer gets to be elected president like Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, he should concentrate on the game of catching criminals and putting them away. Which reminds me of my friend’s experience when she went to the police station to report a road accident. It was 6 p.m. The cop on duty, wearing an undershirt, was cooking his dinner. Neither embarrassed nor bothered, he nonchalantly listened to my friend and continued cooking. My friend was the one embarrassed. She left.
As for public servants accepting gifts, how much is too much? Someone in government recently came up with the ludicrous amount of P100,000 as the threshold, or $2,000 for the sake of comparison, for in the US any gift worth more than $20 given to the incumbent occupant of the White House is to remain in the WH museum.
President Duterte has expressed dismay over cops who continue to act like hungry piranhas in spite of the doubling of their salaries. It must be true that the more crooked you are, the more you want, by hook or by crook.
