A cop’s cop

More than a month after he was named to become the country’s top cop, newly installed Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Oscar Albayalde began last Friday the reshuffle of the organization starting from the top brass. Currently composed of 191,000-strong uniformed personnel, Albayalde cites the marching orders to him by President Rodrigo Duterte to do – among others – what he needs to do to cleanse the ranks of the PNP from the so-called “bad eggs,” or scalawags.

At the outset, Albayalde is confident he can do it without being encumbered by whatever pressure that may be made to bear upon him in the course of the performance of his job. The new PNP chief exudes such confidence as he repeatedly recalls the vivid words to him of President Duterte to do what is right.  

The biggest pressure though that the new PNP chief faces comes no less from his own Commander-in-chief.

President Duterte makes no bones of his extreme disappointment on the kind and quality of policemen we have in our country. Whenever it comes to his mind, President Duterte deplores in particular young police officers or PO1 ranks getting involved in illegal drugs trade, extortion activities and other crimes that they are supposed to fight.

The former Davao City Mayor has been openly speaking about his obvious distrust and low regard to certain members of the police force. This is especially on the cases of former or retired police generals during the past administration who were included in the so-called “narco” list of politicians, police and military men down to barangay officials allegedly involved in illegal drugs trade.

Although very vocal on his sentiments against the erring members of the PNP, President Duterte reiterates his full backing to any policemen who gets into trouble in the performance of their job, especially while carrying his administration’s anti-illegal drugs campaign. The President repeats his vow to defend policemen who, in the line of duty, get charged instead for murder or homicide and violations of human rights while doing what they ought to do as law enforcers.

Ominously seeing bad luck will happen to them are the scalawags among the ranks of the PNP when President Duterte signed Albayalde’s appointment on Friday 13th of April. For the superstitious, number 13 has been associated with being unlucky or something goes wrong, especially if it falls on a Friday.

Actually, the President first announced his choice of Albayalde as new PNP chief one week earlier during his extemporaneous remarks before a gathering at Malacañang Palace last April 5. During that occasion, the President disclosed his choice of Albayalde to replace outgoing PNP director general Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa. Albayalde and Dela Rosa both come from the Philippine Military Academy Class (PMA) of 1986.

The President related the supposed talks he had in Davao City with un-named officials to whom he sounded out on Albayalde’s possible promotion as PNP chief. Mimicking how the un-named officials reacted to Albayalde’s name, the President recalled vividly how they cringed at the mere thoughts of having a “very strict” PNP chief to take over from erstwhile PNP chief Ronaldo “Bato” dela Rosa. ‘‘Yan si Albayalde ang inyo.’ Then Albayalde is the man for you. So the stricter the better,” the President quoted his retort.

While he was NCRPO chief, he fired several precinct chiefs and police officers caught sleeping in stations while on duty. He also removed police chiefs in Metro Manila who failed to solve high-profile crimes and killings in their areas of operations.

At the height of public outcry against PNP’s anti-drug campaign dubbed as “Tokhang,” Albayalde sacked an entire police station in Caloocan City in September last year following the killings of teenagers and a break-in and robbery by city policemen. It was the first time ever that an entire city police unit was relieved since President Duterte assumed office and started the bloody crackdown against illegal drugs.

For the first time since he became PNP chief, Albayalde joined us in the second half of our extended Kapihan sa Manila Bay last Wednesday at the Café Adriatico in Remedios Circle, Malate. It was the fourth time that he became our guest since the time that he was still the NCRPO chief. 

At the Kapihan forum, Albayalde echoed plans to even conduct the usual un-announced emergency exercise like he did once in Marikina City around 3 o’clock in the morning just to test police response time. Ideally, he said, once a police station gets a call for help, policemen must arrive within three minutes especially if there is no traffic. In the Marikina case, the cops arrived seven minutes after the call was made.

Albayalde has to improve police response time now that President Duterte issued Executive Order (EO) 56 last May 25 designating the PNP as one of the primary responder to calls for help during disaster incidents. In EO 56, the President designated 911 as the national emergency hotline, replacing Patrol 117 for better coordination of nationwide efforts to respond to disasters.

“To protect and to defend” the people, Albayalde reminded the public they can also easily call for police assistance through text hotlines 2920 and 2286 as additional hotlines for crime prevention and other emergencies.

Now that he is the top cop in the country, I asked Albayalde if he would still go around Metro Manila, or elsewhere for that matter, on board his Honda 1300 motorcycle and incognito with helmet to conduct surprise visits and inspect police stations and police officers on duty.

Albayalde quickly retorted he would continue to do so especially with the need to relieve himself from the stress of his much bigger role as PNP chief.

To his fellow officers down to the lowest-ranked policemen, Albayalde reassured them he would not ask them to do a job that he has not done himself.

Being the country’s top cop for the next one year and five months until he bows out from the PNP, Albayalde vows to continue to be a cop’s cop.