Broken windows

A day after the first anniversary of the elections that brought Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to power, my mind was on Rodrigo Duterte. Specifically, his hardline approach to law enforcement.

At around 9:40 p.m. on May 10, my car was stopped with other vehicles for a red light along the southbound lane of Roxas Boulevard, before the Airport Road junction, when I was startled by a sharp, loud crack.

I had dozed off. When I opened my eyes, I was stunned to see a fist-sized hole on the lower part of the right side window, which had shattered.

The hole was too large to have been caused by a bullet, and the driver was alive and had picked up a large rock that had landed on the floor.

Fortunately, my eyes were closed when the rock hit the car, and tempered glass does not shatter into gazillion pieces. The hole nevertheless sent tiny glass shards flying, some of which landed on my foot and caused a nick. Some also flew into the face of the driver, who later learned that he had been injured in the forehead. But before noticing his injury, he had quickly jumped out of the car to chase the culprit, who was spotted by some motorcycle riders.

But the driver soon returned to the car and drove away. He told me the rock thrower was a homeless man who looked mentally unstable and was picking up more rocks along the curb. There was no cop in sight and the driver worried that more rocks would be hurled indiscriminately.

Auto tempered glass does not shatter easily. The size of the rock and the force of the throw could have caused serious injuries and could even kill.

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As I looked at the shattered car window in helpless rage, I thought of Dirty Rody.

I know... criminality, including the illegal drug scourge, did not disappear under the watch of Duterte. Not in six months, as he promised in his campaign for the presidency, and not in six years, as he himself admitted.

His take-no-prisoners approach also left a bloody trail of thousands slain on mere suspicion of involvement in the illegal drug trade.

But looking at the broken car window, I could understand why Filipino voters have shown, over and over again, a preference for Dirty Harry types. This preference tends to be high in societies where the criminal justice system is weak, where the law of the jungle rather than the rule of law prevails.

Duterte appears to subscribe to the broken windows model of policing. The model emphasizes the role of disorder (as perceived in a window that has been deliberately broken) in instilling fear and withdrawal among residents in a particular community. The resulting perception of lawlessness in such a community then encourages the commission of more serious crimes.

A version of this theory has been used by Duterte to explain why his war on drugs netted mostly two-bit neighborhood drug pushers.

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There has been no definitive study on whether the broken windows theory, first described in 1982, is valid. Proponents cite anecdotal evidence in the drop in the crime rate in New York City when the theory was applied in the 1990s. The city’s mayor at the time, Rudy Giuliani, went after persons who harassed motorists with unsolicited windshield washing. Such unsolicited washers, incidentally, also proliferate along that stretch of Roxas Boulevard in Parañaque all the way to the junction near PITX. It’s a form of vandalism, but cops don’t bother stopping it.

New York City’s police commissioner in 1994, William Bratton, also cracked down on street prostitution, public drinking, vandalism, panhandling and other misdemeanors. By most accounts, the crime rate in the city dropped under his watch.

Analysis of the practice tended to show that much depended on the implementation of “broken windows.” Critics have stressed that zero tolerance for disorderly behavior can lead to abuses.

It was particularly infuriating that troublemakers like that rock thrower could loiter around that busy area when during daytime, that stretch of Roxas Boulevard in Baclaran teems with cops and traffic enforcers of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority. But the enforcers focus mainly on apprehending motorists who go beyond the speed limit of 60 kilometers per hour. Each violator is fined P1,000.

That 60-kph speed limit, incidentally, is like development in this country: even when the capability is there and the environment allows it, government rules hinder acceleration to a reasonably faster rate.

*      *      *

On Thursday night when we drove past that area, there was not a single person loitering along the curb. The next night, we spotted a police car on patrol along the boulevard. This was hours after I had the broken window replaced at a glass supply shop, where we were told that they’ve had other customers who reported similar random attacks in the same area.

How long the police vigilance will be sustained is a question mark. And you wonder where the vagrants were taken. Cops have always had a problem rounding up homeless people who look mentally unstable, because the country lacks facilities for this.

Anyone locked up for vagrancy must be fed and cared for by the cops. The police typically would rather spend funds on other concerns.

Mentally distressed persons can be taken to the National Center for Mental Health. But the sorry state of this hospital can only worsen the mental condition of a patient.

Along Roxas Boulevard, you can see families who have made the center traffic islands and the bushes lining the service road their home. Their children, some who look no more than five years old, rap on car windows to beg; the older ones provide unsolicited windshield washing, not with squeegees but with rags and dirty water.

Some of the kids are so small they can be easily overlooked by the driver of a large truck, and inadvertently crushed under the tires.

To get the kids off the streets, there used to be signs along the boulevard advising motorists not to give anything to child beggars. But social welfare officials have admitted that there is an acute lack of facilities to care for children and their parents who are taken off the streets.

The Church takes needy folks under its wing, but religious facilities are also limited.

Feeling helpless in the face of a broken window, there are people who will go for anything or anyone offering a quick fix. At least Dirty Harry types look like they’re trying to do something about the problem.