EDITORIAL - What pushes them?

It looked like a scene out of an action movie; 10 men enter a store in Taguig City and tell a woman she is being arrested and shove a supposed warrant of arrest in her face. She questions the validity of the warrant and the men suddenly turn violent.

They suddenly handcuff her, attack some of her family members, and grab cash from her store. They did all of this before destroying her CCTV which was still able to record everything anyway.

The 10 men were later found to be policemen from the Tipas Police Substation, but what they were doing was not a legitimate operation.

According to Taguig City Police chief Police Colonel Joey Goforth, the policemen would arrest people then ask for money in exchange for their release.

As with the case of anyone accused of a crime, we reserve saying they are guilty unless this is proven in court. However, there is no denying how serious of an offense this is.

It would have been lesser of an offense of the 10 men were just pretending to be cops; the fact that they were indeed cops makes it harder to swallow.

By the very nature of their job, policemen are charged with keeping the public safe. From whom? Criminals. They aren’t supposed to engage in extortion or other illegal activities, essentially becoming the criminal themselves.

So now the inevitable questions: Who were involved? How long have they been in the police force? How long have they been doing the said extortion? And the most important question: Is enough being done by the PNP to deter such behavior from policemen?

Policemen can no longer complain about their low pay, not after the hefty increase they received courtesy of the previous administration. So what is it exactly that still pushes some them to cross the line from law enforcer to lawbreaker?