EDITORIAL — Cops and POGOs

Following the finding of areas hosting sites posing as Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations but actually serving as scam farms and bases for criminal syndicate operations, PNP chief Police General Rommel Francisco Marbil warned that policemen found protecting such operations will face appropriate disciplinary actions.

“Integrity and accountability are the cornerstones of our public service. We remain committed to ensuring that our officers uphold these values,” Marbil said in a report in Philstar.com.

Indeed we would like to ask, in the face of sites such as the one in Bamban, Tarlac, and the other in Porac, Pampanga: Was there really no way for the police to know what was going on there? Did they really not know that criminal activities were going on at those sites?

In a separate interview on TV, Marbil said it could be that policemen in some of these places don’t know what’s going on behind not just some closed doors but also closed compound gates because they are prohibited from coming in.

And we ask again: Could this really just be the result of the ignorance of policemen? Did the secretive nature of the entire operation really raise no suspicions?

When the TV interviewer countered that there was no way our highly-trained and professional policemen could ever be that ignorant, Marbil seemed to go back on his words.

If we just chalk this up to ignorance on the part of the police that is bad news indeed, because then it would mean our lawmen aren’t as sharp as we thought they were.

However, the other alternative is much harder to swallow; that some policemen or even police officials are paid well enough to look the other way. It gets even worse, that they are actually in cahoots with the operators of such sites.

And considering how the site in Bamban was practically empty of people when the authorities came to raid it, we cannot completely discount this possibility.

If indeed some policemen are tolerating or protecting such activities then they better be found and dealt with, because if they are willing to accommodate this “arrangement” then what else are they willing to turn a blind eye to?