Why cops must befriend crooks

A cop walks home to the slum and comes across a gang of boisterous half-naked men boozing it up in the alley. Instantly he sees three violations of law – against public drinking, rowdiness and indecency – but he doesn’t accost them. When they call him to a heavy toast, he abides. These are the same crooks that peddle drugs or snatch cell phones thereabouts, yet the lawman must mutter a thank you. Topmost in his mind is the safety of his family when he’s away, which is often. The precinct where he’s assigned is undermanned, so they need to go on 48-hour straight duty.

That irony of police life was what Deputy Director General Avelino Razon meant when he disclosed that up to 60 percent of them live in slums. "How can you expect policemen to maintain the law when they live in squatter camps alongside criminals?" lamented the second highest officer of the Philippine National Police.

Not only do they lack decent homes, but also basic equipment. The PNP is short of 21,204 firearms, 14,700 patrol cars, 48 speedboats, and 32 helicopters. In many precincts they must bring their own handcuffs, bullets and paper to type reports on, and gas up motorcycles with their own cash. No less than 1,200 stations need to be built, and 45,000 men recruited.

Policemen’s budgets hardly ever grow. Yet they are expected to respond in a snap to a break-in, shoot it out with bank robbers, sniff the trail of con men, and of course heighten their street visibility to avert crime.

Sadly this has been going on for decades. I have interviewed half a dozen police generals since the early ’80s, and their stories have remained basically the same. Hermilo Ahorro, Constabulary deputy chief; Alfredo Lim, Manila police chief, now senator; Ramon Montaño, first PNP boss; Lucas Managuelod, head of all detectives; Reynaldo Velasco, chief for Metro Manila; Ernesto Belen, head of the crime lab. All bewailed a scarcity of manpower, firearms and facilities. During their watch, they had pleaded for funds for crime scene replication and additional DNA testing machines, hospitals and cemeteries exclusively for cops, or mere increases in stipends for uniforms. They considered themselves lucky if Congress gave them a fifth of their budget requests. In the end they all shrugged and said a good officer must make do with the little that he has.

What the police have is never enough. The PNP’s 120,000 personnel are stretched over 7,100 islands. Guarding 84 million citizens, their ratio is only one cop for every 700 population – too few for the ideal 1:500. And so the police must depend on about 113,000 barangay watchmen and private security guards as "force multipliers", at least for foot patrols and visibility in private buildings. But the latter are no match for determined criminals, as seen in the recent spate of bank robberies, and killings of journalists and leftist militants. The burden of holding action is still on the PNP.

The police, like all other state employees – teachers, doctors, soldiers – can only wait for better times. If the economy booms and jobs abound, tax payments hopefully will rise to bankroll improvements in police pay and strength. Till then, the police must plod on.

Luckily they’ve done well enough despite the odds. An Oct. 2005 poll bared that 82 percent of crime victims did not bother to report to the police. That was only half the story, though. In truth, 85 percent of respondents said they or their immediate kin had not fallen prey to crime in six months. Only 15 percent said they had been victims, and it was 82 percent of them who just grinned and bore it.

PNP chief Arturo Lomibao reported in January that crime volume grew only 0.6 percent in 2005. Of the total 77,253 incidents, 42,676 or 55 percent were index crimes. Homicide dropped 7 percent. But other offenses rose: murder by 2.1 percent, assault by 9.6, robbery by 2.7, theft by 5.7, and rape by 2.4. Still, of all crimes against persons or property, 84 percent were solved.

Of the total non-index crimes, ranging from heinous kidnapping to forgivable cursing, 97 percent were solved. The total crime solution rate was 90 percent – a good enough grade given the shortages the PNP faces.

The illegal numbers game of jueteng was kept at bay with a strike-one rule; that is, the local police chief is sacked once central authorities note the slightest sign of resurgence.

Still public distrust in crime solution persisted due to high-profile cases. Police conducted 11,962 drug raids and busts, nabbed 14,944 pushers, confiscated P2 billion worth of narcotics, and shut down 11 shabu factories. But they had a dismal record in kidnapping: only 13 of 41 incidents solved, a mere 32 percent despite the capture of 77 gangsters.

Arrested in shootouts were 136 carjackers. But only 454 of 945 stolen vehicles, or 48 percent, were recovered. Of 24 bank heists, only five were solved with the indictment of 25 robbers. The police just have to try harder.

And so, when they walk home to the slum, policemen must think not only of the safety of their families from neighboring thugs. Duty must also be topmost in their mind. But that’s easier said than done.

* * *

A policeman came home and, upon seeing his wife in bed with the gut next door, shot the man dead. The horrified wife shouted, "If you don’t change your ways, you’ll wipe out the whole neighborhood."

Sick, but that joke came from a cop.

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]