For 2024, the Philippine National Police is seeking funds to procure 2,000 body cameras. This will be in addition to the 2,696 in the PNP’s inventory, which were procured in 2021 – the same year that the Supreme Court issued rules on the use of body-worn cameras when implementing search and arrest warrants. The SC rules require the use of a body-worn camera and at least one alternative recording device such as a smartphone for such PNP operations.
The rules were issued amid reports of widespread police abuses in the brutal campaign against illegal drugs waged by the Duterte administration. By July 2021 when the SC issued the rules, thousands of bodies had piled up – mostly drug suspects killed by police allegedly for resisting arrest or nanlaban.
As soon as the requirement for the use of body cameras was announced, the question that popped up was what would happen if the police team claimed that the body camera and other recording device had run out of battery. The question was not flippant, and the nation is now seeing the consequences of a camera supposedly on low bat.
A member of the Navotas police team that pursued Jerhode “Jemboy” Baltazar on Aug. 2, mistaking him for a suspect in a shooting incident, was wearing a body camera. But the device allegedly wasn’t in use when the police team fired at the 17-year-old boy, who jumped in fright from a boat into the water. Baltazar was left in the water by the police team, and was lifeless when he was fished out.
Last Friday, the teenage boy’s mother, overseas Filipino worker Rodaliza Baltazar, arrived from Qatar to a heartbreaking homecoming. The 40-year-old had worked as an OFW to give her three children a better life. Her family has been given PNP protection, as the death of her youngest child led to the relief of an entire police sub-station with jurisdiction over the scene of the killing.
The Navotas police chief said he was told that the body camera worn by a member of the team that pursued Jemboy Baltazar did not work because its battery was low. Was the device even switched on? And what happened to the requirement for a back-up recording device? Everyone has a cell phone these days. Did all the cops leave their phones at the station?
There are rules, but these are ignored. There are body cameras, but these are not used when needed. To fully comply with the rules issued by the Supreme Court, the PNP reportedly needs at least 43,000 body cameras. If the devices will be left unused anyway, why bother with the procurement? Disregarding SC rules must be considered an aggravating circumstance in this killing.