Time to call in Ping Lacson

Pride, walang iwanan, Liberal Party politics should not stop PNoy from making a decision to call in Ping Lacson to clean up the PNP. It is now very obvious that the PNP needs serious and credible leadership, and neither Mar Roxas as DILG secretary nor Alan Purisima as PNP director general seem able to provide it.

The crime situation, an increasing number involving police officers, has become serious enough to demand decisive action. Allowing the state of insecurity over peace and order to deteriorate will have serious consequences on tourism, foreign investments and the business climate in general.

The Philippines has been declared as the most dangerous country for Korean tourists and expatriates in 2013, The Korea Times reported last week. China, also last Friday, warned its citizens not to travel to the Philippines after a Chinese teenager was kidnapped.

Fortunately for PNoy, the best man for the job of disciplining the PNP is one of his allies: former Sen. Ping Lacson. At the moment, Sen Ping is just wasting his time trying to lead the rehabilitation of the Yolanda-stricken areas.  He doesn’t have the resources nor the power required to deliver a successful operation in Leyte.

PNoy should pull out Sen Ping as Yolanda rehab czar and make him PNP rehab czar. His functions as Yolanda rehab czar can be given to Mar Roxas who is quite used to the non-productive dribbling of his mandates anyway.

Of course Mar can keep his title as DILG secretary to salve his ego. P-Noy can opt for his Kiko-Alcala solution and make Sen Ping a presidential assistant for police matters with responsibility for the PNP.

Mar is a bad fit for leading the PNP, anyway. I was more than convinced of this fact after reading his reaction to reports about the existence of a PNP “quota system”.

According to newspaper reports, PNP line officers go astray because they are pressured by the weekly bribes that higher police officials demand from their subordinates. The quota ranges from P3,000 to P7,000 a week, “depending on your assignment or unit.”

When confronted by that report, Mar responded that the existence of this “quota system” is hard to prove. So Sec Mar said unless somebody steps up to substantiate this claim, no investigation can be made.

Ay naku… but of course that is hard to prove. You don’t need a degree from Wharton to know that. Even journalists who have covered the police have heard of such a system. Someone like Sen Ping will know what to do.

Sen Ping will approach the problem from a position of having been there with the police force and having intimate knowledge of how the police brotherhood works. Sec Mar approaches it from the perspective of a newbie, a sheltered kid who grew up insulated from the grime of society that the police must deal with daily.

Sen. Ping can gather the key officers of the PNP and with a knowing look, deliver the message that the fun and games are over and they must all behave themselves or else. Sen. Ping’s reputation is still fresh enough in the minds of today’s PNP officers to know they should worry about his “or else” threat.

Picture Sec. Mar speaking before the same group of PNP officers…  he is perhaps betraying a little nervousness, knowing that he has no idea how to speak to them… he doesn’t know their language… he is clueless how to make them respect him. He just isn’t one of them nor does he understand the way their minds work.

Mar will summon all his p---ng i— macho best and tell them that they must behave or he will throw the book at them. He will threaten to have them investigated, subject them to a lifestyle check and if he gets enough proof, file charges against them. Imagine the police officers rolling their eyes and trying hard to suppress a smirk.

Disciplining the PNP requires credibility. In all honesty, Sen Ping is light years more credible to the hardened PNP officers than the clean and sheltered boy that is Sec Mar.

The thing is... getting Sen Ping to work is urgent. We simply cannot afford to have a PNP that citizens cannot trust.

Said Sec Mar: “If there are personnel who are really involved in crimes, the people can trust that the PNP will act on it.”

Tell me now: can you believe Mar telling you that you can trust the PNP to clean up its ranks? If it were Sen Ping who said that, baka sakali pa may maniwala.

In the meantime, na leche na yung tourism goal in Sec Mon Jimenez. The Koreans are starting to be wary and the legitimate tourists are now going to Guam and elsewhere. South Koreans accounted for 25 percent of the 4.7-million tourist arrivals to the Philippines in 2013.

Our reputation is falling apart in Seoul with a Korean legislator citing Ministry of Foreign Affairs data showing that 780 crimes were committed against South Koreans in the Philippines in 2013. This includes 13 murders, 12 robberies, 678 thefts, two rapes, nine abductions, 12 physical assaults and 10 fraud cases.

According to the Korean legislator, this was the first time that the number of crimes against Koreans was higher in the Philippines than in China. There were 598 crimes committed against Koreans in China in 2013.

The Korean Embassy said there have been nine Koreans murdered from January to July this year, as well as two incidents of kidnapping. From January to June this year, South Korean tourist arrivals fell 6.4 percent to 547,971, due to safety and security concerns.

According to the Korean Embassy, Koreans living in the country reportedly got so worried with the crime wave that they have been raising funds to support the PNP in investigating crimes committed against their compatriots. They did not say how much the Korean community had so far raised for the police. Is this even proper?

The fallout from our deteriorating peace and order reputation is starting to happen. Central Bank data have been cited to show decreasing foreign direct investment from South Korea since last year. Korean investments reached only $440,000 as of May this year, compared to $1.78 million in the same five months last year, representing a 75 percent drop.

It is no longer a question of giving Sec Mar and PNP DG Purisima a little more time to show what they can do. A good manager, that’s supposed to be you, PNoy, simply must put the best man he has on the job right away.

Sen. Ping looks underutilized as Yolanda rehab czar. He should be the police discipline czar instead. Anyway, that’s how a good manager would call it. No friendship. No secret barkada deals of walang iwanan… no Liberal Party political considerations. Just the best man who can deliver a credible and respectable PNP!

Clark, Sangley, etc

It amazes me how the debate continues on where to put our gateway international airport. Just because Clark is there with a ready runway and space for more, some folks say we should move NAIA to Clark… never mind that it is about a hundred kilometers from the South of Metro Manila where most developments needing an airport are.

The Japanese consultants are saying Sangley should be it. Okay, Sangley is not too bad, but they still have to reclaim quite a bit of land to produce the minimum 2000 hectares a modern airport needs. Then the access road to the new airport must also be built and the JICA guys want a Golden Gate type of bridge all the way to the MOA reclamation area.

Paolo Alcazaren, one of my old friends from UP and a fellow columnist here at PhilStar is suggesting Lipa in Batangas. Come to think of it, how come the Japanese guys didn’t consider it? Clark can be developed as a regional hub for northern Luzon and Lipa is the southern Luzon hub.

Here is how Paolo puts it: the alternative port of Batangas... and alternative international airport in Lipa (currently a single 1.5 km runway but with room for expansion to a double runway with greater length).

Both the port and proposed airport are closer to 1) manufacturing and agricultural centers in Southern Luzon, 2) tourism sites in Batangas, Quezon and the rest of southern Luzon including Mindoro, 3) the LIA (proposed Lipa International Airport) is only an hour away via Star toll from the edge of Metro Manila – about half the distance to Clark.

Lipa does look interesting. It is ready right now… no more land to reclaim and the expressway system is operational. In any case, we have to think of Lipa as a future expansion airport after we have exhausted capacities at NAIA and Sangley.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is[email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco