PNP needs cleansing, not closing of its ears

Reporters covering Camp Crame had good reason to suspect that PNP chief Leandro Mendoza was fed bum advice. Former narc informer Mary Ong merely repeated Wednesday in the Senate what she had long disclosed about the PNP – that certain high officers engaged in narcotrade right inside the headquarters in 1998 to 2000. But Mendoza, who became PNP only last January, reacted the next day as if he had heard Ong only for the first time. More than that, he fired off a press statement that seemed to support Ong’s and his common detractors. He twitted her for making a "sweeping indictment of the entire 115,000-strong national police."

Mendoza’s overreaction was obvious. Ong made no such sweeping indictment; she focused her account on Director Reynaldo Acop, Senior Supt. Francisco Villaroman, Supt. John Campos and their former chief, Sen. Panfilo Lacson. For Mendoza to read more into Ong’s story reflected perhaps the mere spurts of reforms in a PNP from which the public has long been demanding a total cleansing.

But reporters know more than that. Those who’ve been covering the beat for years had heard stories of what racket each general was into. If it wasn’t drugs, then it was jueteng; if not protecting cargo highjackers, then carjackers; if not white slavery, then human smuggling. They’ve heard other stories, too, of then-PAOCTF chief Lacson compiling dossiers on the high PNP officers and civilian officials – no different from how FBI founding director J. Edgar Hoover in the ’60s had legislators tailed and wiretapped and photographed in compromising situations. Accounts still echo about how Lacson used to say in 1999 that if Joseph Estrada didn’t appoint him PNP chief, the country would witness their first President being handcuffed. And so the reporters pulled out a list of Mendoza’s top 14 generals in the PNP directorates and tried to identify which ones were Lacson’s favorites at one time or another. Bingo! Only four were never closely associated with the man, which means Mendoza is surrounded by 10 possible "Lacson moles."

If Mendoza would stop lobbying even for just a sec for the appointment of a new justice to the Court of Appeals, he might find time for a loyalty check. From there, he can proceed with the cleansing that the PNP so direly needs. Such cleansing must start with the relief of high officers engaged in various rackets, and patrolmen too who’ve made a habit of kotong (extortion).

A reorientation of all 115,000 cops would follow. More than 65,000 of them have had no training in investigation, one of the most basic jobs of a policeman. Even policemen assigned to mere traffic duty do not know how to determine which party is at fault in a collision. What more the first rule in evidence handling and preservation upon arriving at a crime scene. What more arriving at the crime scene at all.

About 40,000 of them also do not have the college degree required for entry to the service. These former recruits from the Constabulary and the Integrated National Police have only up to 2003 to meet the requirement, or else face dismissal. The government does not have the money to pay for their early retirement. So their only choice is to enrol in school. The PNP must help them by linking up with state colleges and universities to offer extension courses right in the camps.

The PNP also needs to demilitarize itself. Although it was created more than a decade ago, the national police that must be "national in scope and civilian in character" still carries vestiges of the Constabulary years when policemen were under the military establishment. It’s not so much that most of the members of the PNP brass came from the Philippine Military Academy. It’s more the system that, like in the AFP, guarantees officers a ride on a conveyor belt from the rank of inspector (lieutenant) to director (general) and on to blissful retirement even with dismal performance records.

Any PNP cleansing will require a sincere soul searching by the brass. This means acknowledging their mistakes and wrong ways. It means thorough investigation, as Interior Secretary Joey Lina directed, of Ong’s revelations about the PNP in 1998-2000. Certainly out of place is the propensity to close ranks and denounce critics or exposers of stinks in the PNP. Unless, of course, Mendoza wants the PNP to also operate like an old-boy’s club.

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Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel e-mailed this rejoinder to my piece last Monday about the unfocused Senate hearings on Lacson:

My suggestion to suspend the proceedings was in reaction to the suggestion of other senators to terminate the inquiry. It wasn’t intended to confound but to set the basis for its resumption once adequate proof is submitted by the Department of Justice, ISAFP chief Col. Victor Corpus, et al.

Even then, the suspicion arose that Pimentel’s suggestion to suspend the hearings was a sly way of in effect terminating it. He chattered about suspension, while party mates Blas Ople and Tessie Oreta chorused about termination, during a weekend lull when new witnesses like Danny Devnani were preparing affidavits about Lacson’s supposed involvement in heinous crimes. It came when Corpus was telling Ong to fly back to Manila from Xiamen, China, to testify about the narcotrafficking triads.

At any rate, the public is vigilantly watching the hearings. His future actions will show what Pimentel is really up to – whether he’s giving time or none at all for witnesses to come forwards and evidence brought up.

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Updates on the aviation industry:

Transportation Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez signed this week an agreement with Singapore for more flights and more airlines flying the Philippine flag. This means that Cebu Pacific Airlines will now be able to use the application for regional flights that it long ago filed with aviation authorities. Filipinos and Singaporeans will have another choice of airline to take to and from Singapore and Manila, or even straight to the Visayas and Mindanao.

Philippine Airlines posted profits in the first two years of its rehanilitation program. It earned P419 million from gross revenues of P39.3 billion in May 2000 to April 2001, almost ten times the previous fiscal year’s net of P45.8 million. This, despite the triple whammy that PAL encountered: the more than doubling of jet kerosene prices from $17 to $43 per barrel; the blacklisting of RP as a tourist destination because of Abu Sayyaf kidnappings of foreigners in Sulu, Basilan and Palawan; and the weakening of Asian currencies that PAL trades with against the dollar.

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And, oh, a refreshing newsbit reminiscent of David and Goliath: The Supreme Court upheld the right of the small Shangri-la eatery set up in Quezon City in 1986 to use its registered name and the "S" logo versus the claim of the giant Shangri-la Hotel Group to exclusive use of the international name. Two cases filed by the opposing sides had raged in the regional trial court and the Bureau of Patents and Trademarks since 1988. Both reached the Court of Appeals, which consolidated the cases into one. The Supreme Court simply ruled on the basis of the first-come, first-served game in any patent office. The small restaurant registered first, according to Chief Justice Hilario Davide and Justices Consuelo Santiago, Reynato Puno and Bernardo Pardo.

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