EDITORIAL — Good cops, bad cops

Two incidents are giving a black eye to the Philippine National Police…again.

In one incident a policeman, a 33-year-old resident of Barangay San Vicente, Liloan Town, and currently assigned to the Mandaue City Police Office, was arrested in a buy-bust operation last Sunday in Barangay Mambaling, Cebu City.

He was found with ?400,000 worth of suspected shabu.

In another incident, 31 policemen of the Eastern Police District in the National Capital Region were ordered relieved after being accused of serving a bogus arrest warrant against a Chinese businessman in Las Piña City last April 2, only to ransack his home of money and valuables, all worth a total of ?85 million.

Cases are now being filed against the 31 policemen involved as well as their superiors.

We hate to sound like a broken record here, but incidents like these lead us to ask the same questions we always do following similar events: Are our policemen really not earning enough that they feel they should turn to crime to get more money? Are police authorities not able to screen the police force well enough to prevent those with criminal bent from entering? Is nothing being done to deter policemen from abusing the organization?

A policeman who deals in the very same dangerous substances he is supposed to protect the public against? How scandalous! Almost two score policemen accused of conniving to rob someone using a bogus arrest warrant? Absolutely unacceptable!

Again, we believe that there are more men and women in the police force who are honest and upright in doing their jobs. But it’s these scalawags in uniform who continue to drag the PNP’s name through the mud, and even those who are clean get splattered with dirt.

Along with the questions mentioned above is a new one we have to ask: Are some unscrupulous policemen brazen enough to commit such crimes because they are confident someone higher up is ready to protect them in case something goes wrong?