WE feed them. Train them, shelter them, educate them. We expect them to live up to their sacred duty to protect and serve us with a badge, uniform, and gun.
So when they rob us blind, take away our faith in lawful authority, turn their back on their sworn duty while getting paid for exercising their police powers, shouldn’t they be prosecuted quickly and disposed of as traitors? Here we are, expecting them to preserve law and order, and there they go, breaking the law worse than criminals, creatively using what they have learned on the job, with no fear of being caught, and even if caught, exonerated and promoted.
For all that, the only punishment generations of police chiefs and Napolcoms have brought down on their shameless unbowed heads is having them transferred to Mindanao. No matter how obnoxious their behavior and how unforgivable their crimes, do their punishers think of Mindanao as a stinking garbage dump crawling with vermin?
In the televised battle between the 13 ninja cops and the senators probing their caper that has escaped public scrutiny for six years, sworn statements cast the harsh light of day on lie after lie, tale after tale of unbelievable disingenuousness. There were a few emotional moments, such as when the PDEA chief said his family was safe no longer and when one of two BuCor women employees was ordered detained in the Senate basement for her own safety. All the while the accused policemen had put on their best stony faces as their body mass index grew with the width of the TV screen (in Pinocchio’s case, only his nose grew longer with every lie he told).
How much longer must we wait and watch for signs of the rogues finally melting, cracking? If only this TV special could be rated as A-1 entertaining! As a witness exclaimed, “They were ‘nabulaga!’ ” – shocked and awed – by the size of the loot that it took their leader half a day to concoct his report.
I was in shock and awe for three long minutes upon hearing what the DILG spokesperson said at the conclusion of the hearing. “We will be fair to all,” he vowed, “to all.” No, Mister, traitors do not need fairness, just give ‘em hell.
