The old ceremonial practice of taping the muzzles of the firearms of the nation’s policemen will not be done the second year in a row. Taping of guns had been done in the past to discourage the firing of guns during the New Year’s Eve celebration.
Every year, there are reports of victims of stray bullets, usually children watching fireworks in the night sky. For many years, the Philippine National Police ceremonially taped policemen’s guns, as a sort of warning that they should not fire their own guns to join the general noise-making.
Last weekend. Director General Ronald de la Rosa said he is banking on his trust and confidence that his men will not defy the order against the indiscriminate firing of guns on New Year’s Eve. “We trust our policemen that they will not do that,” he said.
This is a welcome affirmation of trust in our nation’s policemen in the wake of so many cases that tended to show them in a bad light. At the start of the new administration, many Metro Manila policemen involved in cases of various kinds were sent to Basilan, as a kind of punishment.
When the anti-drugs campaign was launched with the PNP in the lead, thousands were killed in the operations, as many drug addicts and pushers fought back against arresting officers. But there were also reports of abuses, including the killing of minors, so that President Duterte pulled the PNP out of the anti-drugs drive for a while and directed the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to take the lead. He directed Director General De la Rosa to conduct a drive to weed out “scalawags” from the service.
The PNP has since been returned to the anti-drugs campaign, and De la Rosa affirmed his trust in his men when he announced there will be no muzzle taping of guns this year. This should help to boost their morale.
It may take time, however, before incidents like the killing of Caloocan teenager Kian Loyd de los Santos in a police operation will be satisfactorily settled with due justice for all. The case of the youth who was killed when he was already in custody, as shown by CCTV cameras, has been duly investigated, assuring the public that the PNP is not tolerating abuses in its operations.
In the wake of the Caloocan incident, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian has proposed that policemen in operations wear body cameras. Footage recovered from such body cameras will serve as concrete evidence against police scalawags, he said.
The proposal has understandably been opposed by some PNP officials.”There really is no need for a body camera; our camera as policemen is God,” one said.
This is indeed the ideal situation – policemen doing their job with all due respect for the law and established police procedures But it may be best to try the proposal of body cameras in view of the recent incidents that caused President Duterte to pull the PNP out of the anti-drug campaign for a while.
We are confident the police will soon be able to carry out their duty enforcing the law and protecting the people, with the full trust of everyone, including the small people of communities which have experienced bloody police raids in the past.