Tambays

So who was President Duterte referring to when he ranted, “napakagagago ng mga ito” for failing to understand that his order was to “accost” not “arrest” loiterers in the streets?

The spokesman for the Philippine National Police, Senior Superintendent Benigno Durana, said they reviewed the video of Duterte’s speech, and they were sure the “gago” (foolish or stupid) did NOT refer to the PNP but to critics of the campaign against loiterers or tambays.

Since PNP chief Director General Oscar Albayalde still has his job, and there has been no whisper even in malicious circles that he might have received a dressing down for any misinterpretation of the President’s order, Durana could be right. 

Durana stressed repeatedly that “there was no confusion” in the PNP’s understanding of Duterte’s order to “pick up” loiterers who violate city ordinances – with the exception of some “flukes.”

The “flukes” include the apprehension and detention of six men who were standing outside a friend’s house on the night of June 16 in Makati. Brought to the Guadalupe Nuevo Station 7, the six asked why they were being detained. They were shown a video of Duterte ordering the crackdown on tambays. A cop reportedly told the six: “Basta sinabi ng Pangulo, batas yun (If the President says it, it’s the law).” The six were later released.

This case, Durana said, was a mistake that went against the police SOP, and the morons who were caught doing it have been relieved and face harsher sanctions.

The other controversial case is the arrest (not wrongful, says the PNP) of 25-year-old Genesis Argoncillo, a.k.a Tisoy. The details of how he landed behind bars may have to wait for a Senate probe. But based on initial reports, Argoncillo was accosted for being shirtless outside his house – a misdemeanor in several cities – and then booked for alarm and scandal apparently because he challenged the basis for being accosted.

Argoncillo didn’t end up with his head wrapped in plastic and packing tape for resisting arrest or nanlaban. But he was subjected to a severe beating while in a police jail, allegedly by Sigue-Sigue Sputnik gang members who were extorting protection money from him. He died four days later in a hospital.

Gang men indeed bully non-members in jail. But that kind of beating can’t happen if the jailers weren’t sleeping in the pancitan (noodle house) or, worse, looking the other way because they are in on the gang shakedown. Following Argoncillo’s death, the commander in charge of the police station, the jail custodian and several other cops have been sacked.

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Albayalde also ordered the release of guidelines for the conduct of the anti-loitering campaign. Durana admitted to me that the guidelines were mainly a reiteration of the police SOP in conducting what he describes as “quality of life” operations. This, he said, is to avoid more flukes.

Among the changes ordered by Albayalde is that cops will no longer refer to the targets of the campaign as tambays or loiterers, but rather violators of city ordinances. Duterte, however, reversed him on this yesterday, saying a spade must be called a spade: tambay it is, and “prostitute” rather than “commercial sex worker.”

Some of the ordinances can be unconstitutional. One – the curfew on minors – has been struck down by the Supreme Court, according to Commissioner Roberto Eugenio Cadiz of the Commission on Human Rights. The SC in fact declared as unconstitutional the curfew for minors in Manila and Navotas due to harsh provisions including penalties for the minors. But the SC upheld the curfew in Quezon City, where a minor’s parents are the ones who suffer the penalties.

Cadiz is uncertain about the constitutionality of ordinances against going shirtless even outside your own home or the one in Marikina prohibiting sidewalk vendors from wearing sleeveless t-shirts and slippers.

What Cadiz is sure of, however, is that unless the ordinances are challenged in court and then declared unconstitutional, they remain in effect and the PNP can enforce them.

And Durana is assuring the public that the PNP will.

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The campaign, Durana stressed to us the other night on “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV’s One News channel, is an important component of crime prevention.

Durana also stressed that of 11,251 people that the PNP reported having rounded up as of Sunday in the tambay campaign, only 96 were officially arrested and charged for various types of ordinance violations.

Merely being “picked up” and taken to the police station for questioning on unspecified charges, however, is already a curtailment of one’s movement and could constitute a violation of civil liberties.

Vagrancy is no longer a crime and loitering is certainly not even a misdemeanor. The PNP, however, is authorized – even without any confusing order from Duterte – to conduct random stop-and-frisk operations, or to accost someone if there is reasonable suspicion that mischief or a crime is about to be or has been committed.

This is one of those gray areas in law enforcement where civil liberties can be threatened by the state’s responsibility to keep the public safe.

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Even with the death of Argoncillo and the “flukes” acknowledged by the PNP, there’s a considerable segment of the population that supports this drive against tambays.

Such people believe in the “broken windows” approach to maintaining peace and order, of nipping criminal behavior in the bud before vandals who break windows turn into burglars and then into armed muggers, carjackers and homicidal psychos. Such people believe children recruited as drug mules because the juvenile justice law exempts them from criminal prosecution may eventually become pushers and, if savvy enough, into large-scale drug traffickers.

As in Oplan Tokhang and Double Barrel, however, the end cannot justify the means.

One positive development is that the PNP is meeting with the rights commission to fine-tune ways of keeping the public safe. This is according to both Durana and Cadiz, who shook hands and patted each other on the shoulder at the end of their appearance on “The Chiefs.”

People hope Durana, who served in United Nations peacekeeping operations and has a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University, represents a new breed of PNP officer for whom commitment to human rights is not mere rhetoric.

Perhaps one day “effective” and “humane” can go hand-in-hand in characterizing Philippine law enforcement. Making this happen under Rodrigo Duterte is the biggest challenge.