EDITORIAL - Police bodyguards

The National Police Commission will reportedly conduct headcounts to make sure members of the Philippine National Police are not serving as bodyguards of candidates in the May elections. The Napolcom move is good news – if it can be enforced.

Opposition politicians can expect to lose their bodyguards. But political allies of the administration? Boxer Manny Pacquiao alone, who is running for congressman in his home province, has been given 20 exemptions from the election gun ban for his bodyguards. Does Pacquiao have cops in his security contingent?

For reasons of national security, the president, the vice president and the three officials in the line of succession are entitled to a government security detail. So are former presidents and first ladies, as a matter of courtesy. Apart from those individuals, who else will be allowed by the Napolcom to keep their police bodyguards? If the Napolcom wants its plan to succeed, it should apply the move equally. Granting an exemption to any candidate allied with the administration will open the floodgates to requests for similar exemptions.

Turning down such requests can be difficult for an administration that appears determined to retain its control if not of Congress, then at least the House of Representatives where initiatives to impeach the president emanate. The administration also needs local government officials to support its senatorial slate, which is trailing the opposition in all surveys. Can the administration afford to antagonize these local officials by pulling out their police bodyguards?

Last year the defense department had pulled out military personnel from bodyguard duty, not only to augment forces in the field but also as part of efforts to insulate the Armed Forces of the Philippines from politics. The Napolcom has no military counterpart that will conduct similar headcounts in the AFP to make sure soldiers aren’t moonlighting as politicians’ bodyguards during the election season.

Even if the AFP backslides, it will be a dramatic change if the PNP can actually be pulled out of the security details of politicians. The public is watching if this initiative will move beyond a best-efforts pledge.