Honorable

I am of two minds regarding PNP chief Jesus Verzosa’s offer of a courtesy resignation to the incoming President. It is an offer that can only come from an officer and a gentleman.

On the one hand, it is obviously a gracious gesture. It frees the hand of the next Chief Executive to name a successor he has full confidence in. It is an offer characteristic of the self-effacing professional that Verzosa is.

Over the past few months, when all sorts of conspiracy theories were floated, the police chief stood above the din. He would not be drawn into the messy game of petty political intrigue. When he was snubbed, it endured it with quiet dignity. When there was some attempt to tar him, he simply let his actions shine through.

He stood by the professional creed that is the only source of institutional integrity. He set the example and his men saw what must be done. Nothing credits the PNP chief more than the strict non-partisan behavior of the nation’s police force through the last electoral process. Nothing more needs to be said.

Verzosa has drawn up a road map of continuing reform and rehabilitation of the nation’s police force. That road map he will present the next President along with his courtesy resignation. He intends that to be his legacy to the institution he served competently all his life. The road may envisions a world-class law-enforcement institution by 2030.

On the other hand, by offering to resign, Verzosa might be inadvertently undermining the institution he leads.

He was appointed to the post strictly on merits. He lived up to the billing. No one in his right frame of mind, except those hopelessly gripped by malice, will say that Verzosa was a political hack rather than an honorable officer.

He has the right, whether he claims it or not, to serve at his post until he retires on Christmas Day next. He has the respect of his men and the gratitude of a citizenry relieved that the electoral process happened with such regularity.

By offering his resignation, he opens a window of vulnerability for the institution he leads. He inadvertently delivers the message that the post he holds is one of political confidence rather than strict professionalism. He unintentionally courts the danger that the post could be politicized.

That possibility will undermine the gains he had just made in keeping the PNP strictly apolitical and completely nonpartisan. To be fair to the outgoing administration, the leadership of the PNP was chosen strictly on the basis of competence and with due respect to the code of professional conduct that has now become the culture of that institution.

The Verzosa offer of a courtesy resignation will be a telling litmus test of the quality of judgment of apparent President Benigno Aquino III.

Should the leadership of career government services such as the PNP be co-terminus with the terms of office of elective officials? In the past, that was the habit. It was a bad habit that politicized career services and made these vulnerable to the whims of the momentarily powerful.

There are, to be sure, quite a handful of narrow-minded hawks in the Noynoy camp. They are unable to distinguish between a transition and a purge. They are unable to see reform as a prolonged process of deepening institutional roots and upgrading procedures, not simply as an instantaneous change of faces.

If these hawks had their way, every Gloria appointee will be purged simply because they are Gloria-appointed. They envision the equivalent of the Grand Inquisition where everyone who served the Evil Empire will be tied to a stake and burned alive.

If these hawks had their way, the transition will be made unduly traumatic and chaotic. Instead of seamlessness, which is good for the nation, there will be discontinuity. Such discontinuity will only dislocate gains, waste talent, create gaps in processes and probably retard development.

Purges never served the progress of human civilization. All they achieved was a reckless waste of talent and the rapid exhaustion of good will.

Government, like any corporate organism, thrives on continuity, on the ample availability of institutional memory and on the respect for professional credentials. These are the qualities that enable continuation of the institutional momentum. It enhances the possibility of success of an agenda of reform.

Imagine if, after the 1986 Edsa Revolution, the military and the police were purged on the argument that they served the dictatorship that was just deposed. What chaos might have been produced? In that chaos, the new government itself might have been exterminated.

But Cory, in her wisdom, understood the peril of a Grand Inquisition that happens in place of putting a new government on firmer footing. The police and the military were retrained rather than retrenched. The code of professional conduct, snowed under by extreme politicization during the period of tyranny, was simply resurrected. The internal rules of merit of both institutions were respected. The real professionals were accorded the trust they deserved.

Today, as has been the habit, there is an army of unemployable people peddling their curriculum vitae to the incoming appointing authorities. They are the principal constituency for the self-serving idea of a sweeping Inquisition.

To be sure, in the case of the PNP, there are enough good officers qualified to take the helm. But their qualities should not be demeaned by allowing the regular cycles of tenure and retirement to take its course. The bright young talents will have their chance to shine — when regularity and merit are allowed to prevail.