The cop no money can buy

"Freeze. You’re under arrest."

These words resonate in our living room almost every night. Good thing they come from the TV set, not from a uniformed policeman with a pistol aimed at my family.

As a boy, I had been glued to TV series such as Starsky & Hutch, Hawaii Five-O, Swat, The Rookies and Chips. As an adolescent, I watched Hunter, Miami Vice, Night Heat and Mike Hammer. The protagonists in these TV shows were law enforcers who fought evil elements and came away victorious. I was deeply captivated by the strong sense of duty portrayed by these "Hollywood cops" that I even saw myself becoming one someday.

But alas! Whatever inclinations I may have had about joining the force were slowly extinguished by constant media accounts of cops on the take. Scanning the pages of today’s newspapers, you will find despicable stories about police or military men involved in illegal activities. How sad it is for the police department to have in its ranks scalawags who taint the image of what should be a clean and disciplined organization. They may be a minority, but they are enough to tarnish the reputation of the whole force and do a cruel disservice to their comrades who risk life and limb just to uphold their sworn allegiance to serve and protect the people.

Fortunately — and it’s comforting to say this — there are still a number of idealists who believe they can go against the flow and try to clean up the system. Among them is Frank Serpico.

Serpico gives us a classic example of how one man can make a difference. Al Pacino plays the lead role as Detective Frank Serpico of the New York Police Department.

In blowing the whistle on rampant corruption in the NYPD, Serpico incurred the ire of fellow policemen who found it hard to comprehend why a colleague would make such a fuss about their "extra income" and "sideline’ as we call it here in RP.

This resentment was no more clearly shown than when Serpico, during a drug bust operation, got shot and was seriously wounded. A number of precincts posted a plea in their bulletin boards for cash donations, not for Serpico’s hospital expenses, but for the assailant’s "shooting lessons." It appeared to be a joke but it was never intended to be funny.

You could feel the burden which laid heavily on Serpico’s shoulders. Here you are, trying to be as honest a cop as you should be, when someone hands you an envelope out of nowhere.

Peering inside, you see a wad of bills equivalent to your salary for six months. And what are you being bribed for? Nothing much, really. You just have to lay low on the operation of the illegal numbers game. Boy, that’s too tempting to resist.

But then, you get hold of your senses just in time to realize what an evil thing is being offered you. So you report the incident to your superior only to be advised to just shrug it off and forget the whole thing.

When everything else thought taking bribes was cool and started jumping on the bandwagon, Serpico did not. He refused to ride on the contention that gambling operations would push through anyway with or without police intervention. For him it was simply a matter of duty. If you’re a cop, then be a cop. Otherwise you might just as well join the underworld and earn your money direct from illegal activities.

Fortunately for Serpico, his efforts did not go to waste. As a result of the furor caused by his exposé and his consequent testimonies in the trial, a number of high-ranking police officials went down on their knees.

Suddenly, public perception that nothing can be done about this long-standing problem of police corruption got a new perspective. Somehow, there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

How I wish our Manila’s Finest and the whole archipelago’s as well, would have a hundred or more Frank Serpicos.