Soldiers as symbols of peace and tranquility

As a boy, one of the good things that we remember about the past is that all communities had neighborhood policemen. Everybody knew the policeman and if they were going out on a vacation, the house owner would tell the policeman to keep a closer watch on their homes during their absence. At that time, policemen came from the community that they served.

Today, the police force has been nationalized and many policemen are called to serve in communities that they are totally unfamiliar with. As a result, even if you just ask a policeman the whereabouts of a street around him, it is not surprising to be told that he does not know and his explanation is that he is not from the area where he has been assigned.

We believe that to have an effective police force, policemen should be thoroughly familiar with the barangay, district or city where they are assigned. We will go even further and say that the police force should be completely under the local government. The army should be under the national government. But the police force should be under the towns and cities where they live. As we said earlier, we miss the old neighborhood policemen. They use to be every young person’s contact and every home knew the policeman assigned to their community. Now, policemen are total strangers to the community to which they are assigned. Policemen in Makati are not from Makati.

It would be good if a study can be made on this question. First of all, how is it in other countries? Are policemen national or local officers? Here, we try to give the impression that they are local officers. Policemen assigned in Makati are called Makati policemen. Isn’t this a way of deceiving the public?

Only yesterday, there was a news item on outgoing Armed Forces Chief Gen. Generoso Senga calling on Marines and Air Force personnel to be symbols of peace. To begin with, the Army is supposed to protect us from external aggression. It is the police force that is supposed to be keeping us safe from criminals. We believe that towns and cities should have their own police force. Policemen should be from the communities that they serve. That is the way things were before. Let us go back to the old system of having local police forces instead of national police force.