EDITORIAL - Cops as VIP security escorts

There are only 220,000 members of the Philippine National Police. A proposed Senate bill estimates that there is only one cop for every 572 people in the Philippines. And yet the nation learned last week that bosses of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators were assigned up to 10 cops as bodyguards, and nearly 300 PNP members were on security escort duty for POGOs.

What did the POGOs, which are operated and staffed mainly by Chinese and cater to a Chinese clientele, do to deserve this kind of protection? Senators were surprised to learn that Filipino taxpayers are shouldering the expenses for the personal security of foreigners, when most POGOs are dodging taxes in the Philippines.

The PNP chief himself, Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr., told a Senate budget hearing last Friday that the POGO bosses and their “extended families” were being secured by members of the Police Security and Protection Group. Azurin said the knowledge came to him belatedly. Of the 2,000 personnel of the PSPG, Azurin said 201 were assigned to government officials and 264 to private individuals including Chinese POGO owners.

At the start of the COVID lockdowns in March 2020, two PSPG officers were investigated for escorting to Cagayan 22 POGO workers in four vehicles out of Metro Manila, which was supposed to be under the strictest enhanced community quarantine. Vans transporting POGO workers also zip around recklessly, unmindful of supposedly strict traffic enforcement. Perhaps this is because police officers are part of the POGO convoys.

Secretary Benhur Abalos, who was at the Senate to defend the budget of the PNP and its mother agency, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, expressed surprise at the revelation and told Azurin to pull out the police escorts from the POGOs. Whether it will be implemented remains to be seen. Azurin said he was reviewing the policy of assigning PNP personnel to provide security to private VIPs.

Filipinos are entitled to equal protection in their own land, not only in matters of law but also in actual police services. If there was heightened police presence in Las Piñas, perhaps radio commentator Percy Lapid would not have been murdered, or at least his killers who fled on a motorcycle would have been caught quickly.

Public safety is a basic service expected of the government, and must be provided equitably. Yet even the children and mistresses of public officials are assigned police security escorts. Why can’t they pay for their own security? Like the administration of justice, police service in this country tends to be discriminatory – one for the hoi polloi, and another for VIPs.