The document discusses the issues with the Philippine National Police (PNP). It notes that the PNP is institutionally weak and subservient to local politicians. This was demonstrated by the involvement of police in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre where 58 people were killed. The PNP also has problems with corruption, lack of training and equipment, and human rights abuses. The new administration under President Aquino promises reforms, but transforming the PNP will be challenging given its history of being used for political purposes and suppressing dissent.
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the officers was caught carrying € 105,000 in undeclared cash.
Even when the cops spring into action to do their jobs, they can be
catastrophically inept. Last August, in Manila, a gunman – a sacked
police officer – held a bus full of tourists from Hong Kong hostage.
The PNP’s rescue attempt went disastrously wrong. A bumbling,
slow-motion assault led to a shootout that killed eight of 25 hostages,
as well as the kidnapper.
Organised crime, however, is hardly impressed by law enforcers in the
Philippines. At the start of this year, the PNP proclaimed it would crack
down on “car-nappers” – armed violent gangs who snatch vehicles by
stopping them and forcing the owners out. Rather than duck their
heads and go into hiding, the gangs responded by continuing to hijack
cars the week after the announcement.
After a bomb explosion killed five aboard a passenger bus in Manila in
late January, the Australian embassy issued a travel warning about “the
high threat of terrorist attack and the high level of serious crime”. This
was certainly not an endorsement of police capacities.
Statistics show that PNP capabilities are indeed limited. According to
the UNDP study, over 20,000 PNP members did not have firearms in
2004. Those who did were issued only 28 rounds of ammunition for
one year, with another 10 for marksmanship training. While it needed
25,000 handheld radios, the PNP only had 2,280. This January, a
paper surfaced showing that in nine of the country’s 15 regions, nearly
80 % of police investigators have had no formal training.
In 2009, the research firm Pulse Asia conducted a poll. The results
showed that respondents considered the PNP the country’s second
most corrupt government agency, after the Department of Public
Works and Highways. A 2006 survey by the Social Weather Stations,
a research institute, showed that public confidence in the police was
“very bad”. In 2007, the rating was “bad”, and in 2008 “poor”. Trying to
put the best spin on the matter, the PNP spokesman in 2008 claimed
the ratings at least were “improving” and the police was “slowly
regaining the trust of the community”.
The question is: was there ever any trust to begin with? Philippine law
enforcement’s traditions are rooted not so much in crime-fighting as in
politics, repression and suppression of dissent – with no particular
regard for due process or human rights. Centuries of colonial rule
followed by decades of authoritarianism under a dictator have left their
mark. Democratisation in the late 1980s only changed one thing: The
police no longer served national leaders, but became subordinate to
local politicians (see box).
In a 1987 essay, political scientist Benedict Anderson famously
described the Philippines as a “cacique democracy”, a political system
based on competing oligarchs drawn from a few rich and powerful
families. The clans legitimise their hold on power by dominating
provincial and local elective offices. To win them they use methods
summed up by another famous phrase: “Guns, goons and gold.” Local
police and private armies – goons – play a key role in these elections,
which can be bloody and murderous. The Ampatuan Massacre was
actually one clan’s way of preventing another from registering its
candidate. The scale of atrocity and brutality were staggering, but the
barbarity was not new. In 2007, in a town near Manila, a police
inspector and accomplices set fire to a school being used as a voting
precinct, killing three people trapped inside.
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Between elections, mafia-controlled police protect or even run
unsavoury activities such as drug dealing, kidnapping, car-napping and
illegal gambling. This is possible because, as political analyst Miriam
Coronel Ferrer writes, the Philippines is a “weak state”. She explains:
“A state is weak when its capacity to exercise ‘social control’ is not
only low but also fragmented. There is no rule of law. The national
government cannot convincingly enforce order and exercise
governance, especially in peripheral areas.”
As Ferrer explains, the Ampatuans enriched themselves, built a private
army, suborned the police and terrorised Maguindanao. This was
made possible through the assistance of then President Gloria Arroyo,
who needed the clan’s support in Congress, plus the votes it could
deliver in elections. “Local bosses are able to entrench themselves to
become political dynasties by ‘holding the fort’ for the centre. In turn,
they are able to get a slice of the national state’s resources and
powerful protection.” Under the Arroyo administration, “local
governments were heavily encouraged to procure arms and organise
militias to fight those opposed to the government.”
A new administration
The new administration under President Noynoy Aquino, who was
elected last year, promises change. Interior Secretary Robredo says:
“We will not allow the police to be used for partisan and political
purposes.” He argues that reform is possible: “You need two things: an
administration truly interested in reform, and a national government
that doesn’t tolerate this kind of thing.”
Robredo notes that the National Police Commission (Napolcom)
appoints local officers to supervise the police forces, and that it can
withdraw such mandates: “If they abuse their authority over their police
force, we’ll remove operational supervision and control of the police
from their hands.” He said the department has already done this in two
or three instances. “One was a mayor reported to be protecting illegal
loggers.” Secretary Robredo insists, however, that it makes sense to
put the police under the control of local governments. “The national
government doesn’t have all the resources; a good local official,
whose intentions are similar to those of the PNP, is really a good
partner in maintaining peace and order.” He asserts that “by and large
most of our local officials help the police and provide them logistical
support”.
This year, the Aquino administration has budgeted two billion pesos
(equivalent of € 33.2 million) for acquiring new equipment for the
police. It is continuing implementation of the “Integrated PNP
Transformation Programme”, which is based on the findings of the
UNDP. The Department of Interior and Local Government has also
undertaken a cleanup of the PNP. As of January, Robredo said, 175
policemen had been dismissed – more than half of them for
involvement with illegal drugs.
Whether any of these efforts will change the performance of the police,
or increase its standing in the eyes of the public remains an open
question. The challenges are daunting – and political at heart. Political
analyst Ferrer says: “We have to strengthen and insulate the state
institutions from the machinations of the national leadership, transform
the orientation of local governments and wean them away from presi-
dential patronage; and put a stop to political violence through the rule
of law.“
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A history of suppressing people
Spain ruled the Philippine archipelago as a colony for slightly more
than three centuries, and its police ensured the good behaviour of the
natives. The colony’s premier unit, formed in 1868, was the Guardia
Civil, peacekeeping soldiers independent of the military.
According to Quennie Ann Palafox of the National Historical Institute,
the Guardia Civil could “arrest men who were only under suspicion” as
well as those “they deemed undesirables”. The Guardia was notorious
for its abuses: Palafox notes that during the revolution against Spain,
the unit “killed indiscriminately ... they detained and tortured suspected
rebels.”
When, in 1899, the United States grabbed the Philippines from Spain
and beat down Filipino resistance in a savage war, the Americans set
up what historian Alfred McCoy calls a “colonial security apparatus”. In
1901, they established the Philippine Constabulary (PC), which in
McCoy’s words was “a long-arm mobile police with the dual mission of
counterinsurgency and colonial intelligence”.
The PC, a paramilitary national police force, continued to exist after
the US departed in 1946, becoming a branch of the Philippine armed
forces. It continued its “pacification” role, this time against a
communist insurgency that has not been entirely beaten even today.
In 1973, Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator-president, created a parallel
force, the Integrated National Police (INP) to take charge of municipal
policing. Under a single commander, both the PC and INP went on to
attain heights of infamy. Marcos used the combined agency as an
instrument of repression and wholesale abuse of human rights; police
units rounded up dissidents, political opponents and suspects, torturing
and killing with a free hand. It was under this regime that the word
“salvaging” – murder by police – became notorious.
A few years after Marcos was chased out of the country in 1986, the
PC-INP was disbanded and replaced by the PNP, which was placed
under the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG). The
new arrangement asserted civilian authority and also gave local
governments more say in law enforcement. But it also shifted the
pattern of police abuse from a national to a local level. Policemen were
coerced or enticed into joining the power apparatus of provincial
warlords. (ar)
Alan C. Robles
is a Manila-based journalist. He teaches online journalism at the GIZ’s
International Institute for Journalism in Berlin.
»» alanrobles@gmail.com
Reference:
Anderson, Benedict, 1987:
Cacique democracy in the Philippines: origins and dreams. S. Newlett
Review I/169, May-June.
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