EDITORIAL — HPG “escort services” for sale?

You have to love social media; it’s where some people make absolute fools of themselves in a public space. In this case it was a woman who boasted in a post that her husband had hired someone from the PNP Highway Patrol Group to provide her escort and breeze her through the worst of Metro Manila traffic.

She even posted a photo of the HPG escort.

Now the police are looking for that HPG personnel --and the woman-- to file charges against them.

We cannot discount several possibilities. First, that the woman could have thought “HPG” was a generic term for someone who provides motorcycle escort. Second, that the person they hired only posed as personnel of the HPG. Third, that the woman lied that someone from the HPG agreed to be hired to give her traffic escort to destroy their reputation. Fourth, that someone from the legit HPG did agree to provide escort services for money.

If it was the first possibility, then it was all a big misunderstanding, but the woman still has to answer for besmirching the reputation of the police.

If it was the second, then police as well as the public should be more aware of so-called “HPG personnel” offering money for traffic escort services. HPG personnel aren’t ordinary policemen; they are trained to do their job on, out of, and around those big bikes, not to mention how to deftly maneuver through heavy traffic on big bikes. This skill isn’t available to everyone and someone might get hurt if some people offer to do jobs they weren’t properly trained for.

If it was the third, then the woman should be charged for trying to malign the reputation of the police.

If it was the fourth, then this is the worst-case scenario. Policemen shouldn’t hire themselves out as private security or mere traffic escorts. Because if a cop accepts money to not act like a cop for a first time then he might accept money to do the same thing for a second time, a third time, or maybe even more.

This goes without saying the police must get to the bottom of this issue quickly.