Serve and protect?
To serve and protect. You will see this written on most police vehicles. It is also the sworn oath that all policemen take once they actively enter the force. But what exactly do we witness or experience today? A video that has recently gone viral shows an enraged San Juan police officer berating and threatening to arrest a civilian simply because he was cut in line at an eatery. The officer also lambasted the civilian for “not respecting him.” The officer repeatedly cursed the civilian and threatened to arrest him, even asking for an ID, otherwise he would arrest him for vagrancy.
The San Juan police officer has since been sacked and will have to undergo a “refresher course on values formation.” The civilian was fortunate as the entire incident was caught on video. But what if it wasn’t? Who do civilians turn to when confronted by police officers such as the officer in the video? It shows how easy it is for anyone to be trivially accused, arrested, and sued by a megalomanic police officer. Apparently cutting in line is a criminal offense especially if committed to a police officer. It is also a crime to “disrespect” a policeman in an eatery. Is it a crime only in an eatery or in everywhere else – cinemas, stores, churches? I understand respecting figures of authority but in the course of performing their duties such as arresting a suspect and not while queuing up to buy food.
NCRPO director Police Major General Guillermo Eleazar understands that we all lose our cool once in a while. But since police officers have sworn to serve and protect, they should have more patience than usual and just let these incidents pass since they serve the public and not the other way around. I totally agree. While the PNP would want to state that this particular incident is an exception and not the rule, they do happen. The San Juan officer seemed to demand respect instead of earning it. I don’t find it surprising why the officer was hurling invectives just like that since the top supporter of the PNP does the same. A while back, a police general was cursing a fellow police officer, a woman at that, hitting her with his hand and with his car door for apparently not doing what he asked. Another case of “disrespecting”?
I wonder how many megalomaniacs are now in the PNP? It seems doubling their salary has produced some ill effects. We have not even talked about a report that despite the doubling of police wages, the number of complaints against them for non-support raised by forty percent. More wives and kids to support perhaps with not enough to spread around? Is this why we continue to have many scalawags in the PNP?
- Latest
