EDITORIAL - No business becoming cops

Some cops are involved in drugs for the obvious advantages such a position brings, but these days it seems some people can’t even wait until they have become policemen before involving themselves in drugs.

Last Monday night, second-year Criminology student Christian Broñola dela Peña, 23, a resident of Sitio Kastilaan in Barangay Ermita was arrested in a buy-bust operation for having 505 grams of shabu worth ?3.4 million.

Dela Peña said he was forced into the drug business so that he could pay his school expenses. He also added that he was introduced to the drug business by a friend and that their “boss” was in prison.

This situation again calls attention to several issues already mentioned in previous editorials like how drug seizures in the millions are becoming more common, and how people are still managing to run a drug business even as they are in prison. We can even throw in how expensive school has become now, although that isn’t a drug-related issue like those previously mentioned.

Another issue we can raise is how the drug business, and its allure of quick and easy money, is managing to snag the very people who are supposed to fight it.

We can’t resist saying it: If Dela Peña was seriously considering a career in law enforcement as most of those who take Criminology are wont to do then he should not have dabbled in crime at all.

In fairness we cannot say with 100% certainty how Dela Peña would have turned out had he eventually become a policeman, but we have the hunch he might have been more of the type to look the other way if this early he was willing to turn to crime as a means to an end.

It’s good that he was found out this early, people who involve themselves in drugs, no matter what excuse they use, have no business becoming cops.