EDITORIAL - Lifestyle check

With police officers being implicated in the current crime wave, the government is considering lifestyle checks on members of the Philippine National Police. Obviously, with the government’s limited resources and manpower, such checks will not be possible for the more than 100,000 PNP members. But the checks can be conducted on those who have been indicted or are suspected of involvement in illegal activities.

In an organization whose tasks include sleuthing, there should be few secrets. Cops can see when their colleagues start living it up with no known legitimate sources of additional income. In such cases, a mechanism must be set up between the PNP and agencies capable of ferreting out unexplained wealth, so that suspicions can be reported and a discreet lifestyle check can be conducted.

Like other government employees, cops are required to submit statements of assets, liabilities and net worth. The SALNs can be checked against actual lifestyles. The Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Office of the Ombudsman can be tapped for such checks. When warranted, the Anti-Money Laundering Council can be called in for assistance.

If there is reasonable ground to file charges in connection with ill-gotten wealth or tax evasion, the complaints must be filed without waiting for the completion of probes on the involvement of police suspects in shakedowns and organized crime.

The reporting mechanism must encourage PNP personnel to blow the whistle even on their superiors without fear of being identified as the source and singled out for retaliation.

Once charges have been filed, questionable assets must be frozen. There are individuals, and not just in the PNP, who are willing to go to prison as long as their dirty money will remain untouched and can be used by their loved ones. The ultimate goal of any lifestyle check must be to make crooks understand that crime does not pay.