PNP again says there are not enough body cameras
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Police only has 2,700 body-worn cameras for its entire police force nearly six years since it first received funding to purchase the devices to capture footage from police operations.
This means the agency only added around 100 to the 2,600 cameras that the PNP counted in its inventory when it first procured the equipment in 2021, data showed.
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PNP’s public information office chief, Police Brigadier General Red Maranan, told Super Radyo dzBB on Sunday that the PNP is still short of body cameras, resulting in a “very limited” number of cops with devices that can capture police operations.
Calls to outfit the police force with mandatory body cameras were revived last week after Navotas cops killed 17-year-old Jemboy Baltazar while pursuing a murder suspect. They had mistaken the teen as their target and fired at him, resulting in what the PNP now describes as a “case of mistaken identity.”
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“We lack body cameras. Our requirement for that is something around 45,000. However, we only have 2,700 at the moment,” Maranan said in Filipino.
Maranan added the PNP has already “programmed the procurement” for the devices and has sent DBM a budget request.
“We will be able to procure more. Because in the previous years, we prioritized COVID, that's where we allocated resources for the last two years,” the PNP official said.
Congress first allotted P334 million for the equipment in the PNP’s 2018 budget, but the procurement had been delayed, with PNP's bidding starting only by late 2019.
At a hearing in October 2021, then-PNP chief Gen. Camilo Cascolan said the PNP had already ordered around 2,600 units of the body cameras, which at the time had already been more than two years since it received the funding for it.
Reformation program
Maranan said there has been a decrease in the number of police personnel who have been slapped with an administrative complaint.
Maranan said “only” 1,400 police officers were reported for committing errors in the performance of their duties this year compared to the 2,400 cases reported during the same period last year.
“We view this positively as a decrease in the number of police officers making mistakes, whether intentional or unintentional,” Maranan said, noting the decrease is around 83%.
The PNP official added that police personnel have continuously been undergoing a “reformation program” that includes, among others, lessons on “human rights and moral values.” Cops have also been receiving weekly sessions with “life coaches” to help them process their personal or familial problems.
During the height of the Duterte administration’s war on drugs, reports of police abuses spurred the Supreme Court to issue back-to-back orders on the use of body cameras during police operations. The High Court specifically required law enforcement agents to wear and use body cameras when serving arrest and search warrants, and in the absence of such devices, to use alternative equipment.
Only four police officers have been found guilty of murder while carrying out the anti-illegal drug operations under Duterte, which is currently being probed by the International Criminal Court.
Government figures place the number of deaths in Duterte’s drug war at around 6,200, but local human rights groups say the real figure could be three times higher due to poor police documentation.
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