Idiots have geniuses for fathers

To put the title of this column another way, it takes great genius to inspire great idiocy. And whoever came up with the hare-brained idea from within the 220,000-strong Philippine National Police of accosting people who engage in public displays of affection and eventually arresting them for violating health protocols in this time of COVID if they continue to do so after being warned must be a member of MENSA.

The idea is so stupid I must applaud the brilliant minds behind it. That the entire nation is in an uproar over it shows the extent of the idea's idiotic brilliance. Everybody fell for it. From senators to neighborhood istambays --gibitik ang tanan nilang utot sa pulis. It does not matter if someone has a hand to actually hold, a shoulder to put an arm around, or even lips to kiss.

The notion is so absurd that the whole Philippines appears to be preparing to go to war over it. I really, truly salute the police for this great genius. Now everybody has forgotten, or at least got distracted, hopefully for long enough to forget the police shootout with PDEA agents, the police raids in Calabarzon that ended in a virtual massacre, the lumad raid in Cebu, and now the shootout in Samar that killed the Calbayog City mayor.

It does not really matter whether the police were in the right or in the wrong in all of these high profile incidents. I myself am inclined to give the police the benefit of the doubt. It is far easier for me to think the police acted with regularity in all of these events that went bad than to belabor the point that they may have acted in bad faith and had gone rogue.

Even if the police had been in the right in all of these things, controversy still has a way of giving the police a bad press. And the police just cannot afford to have controversy be the monkey on its shoulder. That is too much weight and nuisance to go around given the nature of a police job. If only it is possible, the police would rather prefer to be always on the good side of people's hearts and minds.

The police certainly want to earn the trust of the people. And if there is sincerity in that, the police sure would want to buy a little time until all the various independent investigations into the above-named incidents can at least clear the air for them to regain the public confidence so essential and necessary to good and effective police work.

And so the police would do just about anything, short of going criminal, to buy that precious time. And there is nothing criminal about a stupid idea such as disallowing public displays of affection to buy them the time they need. It is just one stupid idea. Period. Nothing more to it. If people pillory it, make fun of it, at least nothing violent proceeds from it. Nobody kills or gets killed from scoffing at such madness as outlawing PDAs.

Besides, the police cannot really do anything about PDAs. For one, the police can only enforce but not create laws. The police have no right making regulations governing public behavior. Only legislatures can do that, or executives by way of executive orders. This idiocy is not meant to be enforced. It is just a red herring meant to draw attention away from controversies more crippling than just being stupid or ridiculous.