EDITORIAL — Can the system tell who wants to be a cop or a criminal?

After President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered him to extend his term, PNP chief Police General Benjamin Acorda Jr. vowed to kick out more scalawags from the police organization.

“With this extension with the police force, I wish to lessen the number of those involved (in corruption)... I hope there won’t be any more, although that’s reaching for the moon already, but we will aim for that,” he was quoted as saying in a Philstar.com report.

Kicking bad cops out of the PNP is a good thing, but you know what would be better? Stopping them from coming in in the first place.

Nipping something in the bud is always the best way to deal with a problem.

Not only will stopping bad guys from becoming cops save the government money, time, and resources training men who eventually go back on their sworn oath; it will also prevent them from learning the skills that can actually help them evade the law or become even better criminals.

Let’s say someone who doesn’t deserve to be a cop becomes a cop, then a few years or even longer in service PNP higher-ups discover his anomalies, deem him unworthy, then kick him out. By the time he is out he will have already known how to use a gun, how to conduct an operation, how to lay low, and how to avoid police operations.

Worse, he may also have an idea who are the criminals he can work with or who are the other policemen susceptible to temptations of quick money.

But then again this raises the question: Can the PNP screening process really find out who shouldn’t become cops?

There seems to be no shortage of policemen accused of eventually turning criminals. Just recently there was a policeman who robbed a cooperative in Toledo City, remember? He was technically still a newbie at the job.

Was there no indication of his future predisposition to crime? Or can the system really not tell if someone who wants to be a cop will end up becoming a criminal instead?