EDITORIAL — Yet another black eye for the police

This title is probably becoming familiar to our readers by now. We use this whenever a policeman is arrested or caught committing a crime.

This time it happened in Marilao, Bulacan, last Monday night, where a man robbed a convenience store, taking P20,000, before fleeing on a motorcycle. When policemen tried to flag him down he pulled out his gun and tried to shoot his way through, prompting them to return fire and hit him.

It was only later after he died in the hospital that he was identified as a policeman, specifically a police captain, according to a media source.

The Police Regional Office-3 has vowed to investigate the incident, even as it condemned the actions of this one particular policeman.

“We will continue to strengthen our ranks and ensure that every action we take upholds public trust,” PRO-3 director Police Brigadier General Ponce Rogelio Peñones Jr. said.

This brings us to the same questions we keep on asking every time a policeman is unmasked as a criminal. Why do we never seem to run out of scalawag cops? Is there no way to keep people with criminal tendencies from becoming cops? Are cops not getting paid enough to actually stay honest lawmen and not turn to crime to augment their income? Is the police organization doing enough to make sure cops don’t turn into crooks?

While we don’t condone his actions in any way, this act would have been more understandable if the policeman was of low rank or just newly admitted to the police force. The fact that he already made it all the way to police captain shows that he has been in the police force for some time now. It also makes us wonder what else illegal he has been up to during his time in the force.

Again, we stick to the belief that the majority of men and women in the police service are honest and don’t dabble in crime. But again, it should be mentioned that those who do drag down the name of the entire police organization with them.