EDITORIAL — More cops not acting like cops

Two former policemen are now set to be charged for the murder of a Filipina beauty queen and her Israeli fiancé who were found shot dead in Tarlac.

Former patrolmen Michael Guiang and Rommel Abuzo, and another person, allegedly conspired to kill Geneva Lopez and Yitshak Cohen on the pretense of selling a piece of land Guiang owned after he could no longer pay the money he owed her.

Meanwhile, Police Staff Sergeant Andro Manangan of the Amparo police sub-station in Caloocan City was arrested during an entrapment operation by the Philippine National Police-Integrity Monitoring and Enforcement Group after allegedly accepting ?30,000 from the sister of a drug suspect in exchange for that suspect's release.

Before he was arrested, Manangan was suspected to have been gambling in the police station with two other policemen, Senior Master Sergeants Jun-jun Silvertino and Jonathan Aggalao.

Yes, you read that right. They allegedly played tong-its, a card game that gets ordinary people arrested, in the police station. Those other two, along with Manangan, have also been charged for illegal gambling.

And again this brings us to the same questions. Can the PNP really not keep out the cops who shouldn’t be cops? Is there no rehabilitating scalawags within the police organization? Isn’t their huge salary already a deterrent to taking bribes and engaging in moonlighting or even crime? Did the previous administration make a mistake when it increased the salary of policemen?

By now you would think the PNP would have worked out something that keeps wayward cops in line, or something that screens and keeps out those who shouldn’t become cops. Or is there still something wrong or lacking in the system.

We say it again: Most of those in the police organization are respectable men and women who are only doing their jobs. But it’s the few rotten apples in the barrel that tarnish the reputation of the entire police organization.