EDITORIAL - Internal cleansing

This month the Philippine National Police is launching a program to rid the force of undesirable elements. This is supposed to be a continuing program in the PNP, but recent developments have prompted the police leadership to launch the “Revitalized PNP Internal Cleansing Strategy.”

The planned launch is coming on the heels of the announcement by PNP chief Oscar Albayalde that approximately 1,000 cops have been linked to the illegal drug trade. More are suspected of involvement in various types of criminal activities, mostly involving money such as extortion, kidnapping for ransom and paid assassination.

Admitting that there are bad eggs in one’s own organization is a good start. President Duterte himself has said hundreds of policemen are in his so-called narco list. He has threatened to “neutralize or terminate” the rotten eggs.

Beyond termination, however, the PNP needs institutional reforms to prevent the entry of rotten elements, and then to catch law enforcers who break the law. Police salaries have been raised, but PNP officials lamented that this apparently has not been enough to discourage cops from engaging in criminal activities.

The reforms must start at the recruitment stage – something that the PNP leadership has acknowledged. Recruitment criteria must be laid down clearly and strictly followed, leaving as little room as possible for meddling in the process by politicians and special interest groups. President Duterte should put his full support behind this reform and discourage his political allies and other supporters from interfering in the system of appointment and promotion in the PNP.

Apart from de-politicizing the process, personnel in charge of screening police applicants must be monitored carefully for signs of looking the other way, for a fee, when applicants fail to meet certain requirements. This is said to be common especially in the psychiatric evaluation of applicants.

Background screening must also be more thorough. This shouldn’t prove too hard in the digital age, when many personal information plus biometrics are stored in the databases of several government agencies, and personal background is available on social media platforms.

A counterintelligence team is being set up, which will be dedicated to monitoring cops’ possible involvement in crime. Albayalde said the internal cleansing aims to show the public that there are a lot more good cops than rotten ones. He has to make sure the cleansing is sustained.