EDITORIAL — Never-ending battle of the bulge

When Panfilo Lacson was still chief of the Philippine National Police, one of his reform programs had been to instill physical fitness among policemen. Those whose waistlines went beyond a certain number of inches were kicked out after repeated failures to trim down.

But Lacson and the police soon parted ways. Lacson went on to become a senator while the police went back to being identifiable by their tummies again. This has alarmed police regional director Silverio Alarcio, who is now threatening to do another Lacson.

There are, however, a number of things that can spell the difference between what Lacson did and what Alarcio intends to do despite the similarities of their convictions regarding the physical fitness issue.

Lacson was PNP chief. His voice was the only one heard within the organization. Alarcio, on the other hand, is just a regional director. His voice is just one of many begging to be heard in a big organization where rivalries and jockeying for position lurks beneath a calm surface.

Despite his good intentions, and even if for nothing more than spite, the possibility exists that somewhere up the ladder somebody tells somebody who tells Alarcio to go easy on his men and that would be it.

The truth is, the large number of physically unfit policemen is a scourge that continues to hound the police organization. Even Lacson only managed to start the initiative but there was never any lasting eradication of the problem that was achieved.

The scourge is exacerbated by the fact that police forces in the country are greatly undermanned. The ideal police-to-population ratio of 1:500 in highly urbanized areas alone is a long-standing pipe dream. Kick the unfit out and the police can be in a real mess.

The problem here is that the real problem has remained largely unrecognized. The problem is not bulging waistlines. The problem is attitude. A physical fitness program addresses only the bulge. What needs to be addressed is why a bulge has to take place.