EDITORIAL — Excessive entitlement

Leni Robredo, in her six years as vice president, survived with a security detail of less than 100. In her final full year in office, Robredo had only 78 security personnel.

So people are stunned that Vice President Sara Duterte had 433 security personnel as of 2022 – and has gone ballistic after 75 of them were pulled out last week by the Philippine National Police. In a social media post, Duterte claimed “political harassment” and accused PNP chief Gen. Rommel Marbil of lying about the circumstances surrounding the pullout of her security detail. She also claimed police had “cased” her neighborhood to find out where she lives.

Since when did the place of residence of the vice president become so top-secret it needs casing by the police? Also, with Duterte’s resignation from her two appointive posts, she has even less work to do these days. Why would the spare tire need nearly 500 bodyguards, all on the public payroll, under a Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group?

PNP officials are correct in pointing out that assigning too many security personnel to guard a single person – except in the case of the president – deprives millions of Filipinos of equal protection. Because there are only about 220,000 cops to protect nearly over 100 million people – a long way from the ideal police-to-population ratio of 1:500 – the PNP is correct in rationalizing the deployment of police personnel as bodyguards for VIPs, and even persons who claim to face serious threats to their safety.

As for such threats, Duterte must have felt safe enough to even name herself the designated survivor when she skipped President Marcos’ State of the Nation Address. That statement was neither a joke nor a threat, the Vice President said in her trademark confusing style of expressing her thoughts.

The 75 bodyguards who were pulled out reportedly include 33 who have served as her close-in security since 2007. This detail makes their transfer all the more justified; it’s time for them to stop serving as members of a private army. No PNP member should stay that long in one posting. The PNP is a national police force, and there should be a regular reassignment of all its members, so that no one stays long enough in a particular posting to prevent any politician from using them as tax-funded private bodyguards.

General Marbil deserves commendation for his efforts to rationalize the use of PNP members for bodyguard duty. He should expand it to cover other politicians and private VIPs, all of whom have enough money to hire private bodyguards. The next step is to further trim the Vice President’s security group. This is an excessive entitlement and a waste of precious public funds.