EDITORIAL -The anomaly the SWAT has become

Set aside for a while the fact that two Cebu City SWAT members used excessive force (as very clearly seen on television) in apprehending an unruly (also very clear in the same footage) student from Papua New Guinea.

Consider instead the wisdom, or lack of it, of deploying SWAT members to respond to very ordinary alarms — in this case an unruly, possibly drunk, foreigner who was armed with nothing more lethal than a piece of stone.

As everybody knows, the acronym SWAT stands for special weapons and tactics. In other words, members of the SWAT are supposed to be the elite, the cream of the crop, experts in the use of weapons and tactics.

When you have a unit of highly-experienced, highly-trained, and it goes without saying, also highly-disciplined individuals, the logical and prudent thing to do is to hold them in reserve. You do not throw them against a drunk with a stone, foreigner or otherwise.

But maybe because this is the Philippines, where anything literally goes, we have a very quirky situation where SWAT members are not just called in to quell a drunk, they are also made to do beat patrols on motorbikes.

Only in the Philippines can you see SWAT members, in full uniform and battle gear, the word SWAT prominently emblazoned on their backs, perhaps to warn people not to mess with them as it is to call attention to the oddity, weave in and out of traffic on motorbikes.

Now back to the use of excessive force (kicks and rifle butts) by two SWAT members on that unfortunate soul from Papua New Guinea. What did anyone expect from a unit whose exclusivity has been replaced by ordinariness.

When you throw a special unit into doing ordinary jobs, it will not take long for them to become ordinary themselves. Those two SWAT members are themselves victims of a system that has malfunctioned because of irresponsible and unthinking tampering.

Of course they deserve some punishment of sorts. But whatever sanctions may be meted against them should no longer take into consideration the fact that they are SWAT. After somebody made them do ordinary jobs, they became ordinary. Their punishment should be on that level only.