PNP ought to stop publishing crime stats!

Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief, Director General Raul M. Bacalzo has directed the entire PNP to take a “holistic” approach against crime in the wake of the gruesome killing of two car dealers by carnapping syndicates. Already the PNP Chief has ordered the sacking of two Police officers Supt. Constantino Agpao of the Quezon City Police Station 10 and Chief Inspector Alex Fulgar, a precinct chief in Makati City for their failure to stop carnapping in their areas of jurisdiction. This move was also in response to the theft of a car owned by a cousin of Sen. Mar Roxas.

This is the problem with the PNP hierarchy, especially now because car theft has become a high-profile crime. They immediately moved to get some heads rolling. But then, when things die down, I’ll bet you that those officers would resurface somewhere in the Philippine Archipelago to places were the people do not know these officers. This has been a PNP practice since they were still with the Philippine Constabulary (PC) which was eventually replaced by the Integrated National Police (INP) and up to present.

If you ask me, any PNP officer who gets a high position should never be reassigned again, but given a non-sensitive post and if that officer continues to embarrass the PNP, then he should be booted out of the force. It’s about time that the PNP changes its ways as we have already lost our confidence in our Police force to be the guardian of the Filipino people. A case in point was that embarrassing Aug. 23 incident where eight Hong Kong tourists were hostaged and eventually killed by Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza who was also killed in a comedy of errors seen on worldwide TV.

If the PNP Chief truly wants a “holistic” approach to fight crime, he should start from within the PNP itself. Human trafficking is one big business in this country that continues to flourish because certain PNP operatives work for those criminal syndicates as either the “eyes” of these syndicates or worse, often as their bodyguards or bouncers of their clubs. I don’t have to tell you that there are so many brothels in Metro Manila which could never operate for a single day unless they have “Police protection”. To find out where those brothels are, all one needs to do is ask any taxi driver and he’ll get you to the nearest brothel or his friendly “suki”.

No doubt the task of the PNP is so huge because so many PNP personnel are involved not only in helping carnapping syndicates, they’re involved in drug syndicates, gambling syndicates . . . you name it, they are there. I’m sure that PNP Chief Raul Bacalzo won’t be able to clean the PNP rank and file in one sweep, but if he is serious enough, I’m sure we would see things change within PNP.

Finally, I’d like to point out that it is time for the PNP to get away from publishing those crime statistics, like what came out in the headlines of our national dailies last Monday which reported that car theft cases were down or that robbery cases were down, if we believe these statistics at all. Herein lies the problem, where a police officer would boast or brag that crime in his jurisdiction went down under his watch. Granted you could boast that crime went down by as much as 50 percent, the problem is, the criminals are still enjoying a 50 percent advantage. If any, the PNP ought to stop publishing those criminal statistics and aim for a zero crime incidence.

A case in point is Cebu. We are considered the 2nd largest city in the country, but if there is an average 1,739 motor vehicles stolen in the year 2010, I would like to know the figures for Cebu. I’m asking this question because car theft is so miniscule in Cebu… the media doesn’t even report these incidents. But it doesn’t mean that Cebu is free from carnapping.

Thanks to the removal of the PNP’s Anti-Carnapping proviso (it was removed during the time of DOTC Sec. Pantaleon Alvarez, GMA’s first DOTC Secretary) we now have vehicles being transported via Roll-On, Roll-Off vessels. I agree that it is easier for carnapping syndicates to take advantage of this ease in transporting a stolen vehicle to other places.

To thwart this, I suggest that the DOTC should issue an order for all shipping companies to take a digital photo of every vehicle that it loads and give copies to the Coast Guard and keeping copies for themselves. I’m sure that if they do that, it would make it more difficult for carnapping syndicates to ship out stolen or carnapped vehicles, while still allowing legitimate car owners the ease of moving from one island to the next, through the Strong Republic Nautical Highway (SRNH) which was one of the backbone programs under former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

We laud the valiant efforts of the PNP Chief to clean up the ranks of the PNP. He needs our help, which is why we are offering these suggestions to him, that’s if he is truly serious about getting rid of crime under his watch. We shall be watching developments on the PNP a few months from now.

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