A constitutional breach
The headline of The FREEMAN last Sunday read: P50T FOR COPS WHO CAN KILL CRIMINALS. This paper reported that Mayor Tomas Osmeña will give the reward using the discretionary fund allocated by the city from taxes. Based on my understanding of law, I doubt the legality of such a declaration as I question the validity of an expense from taxes in favor of anyone killing a fellow citizen.
The figure is eye-popping and mind-boggling. How did Osmeña reach this figure? Fifty thousand pesos is much bigger than the monthly salary of a minor policeman and there are foreseeable consequences from the disparity.
Theoretically speaking, our policemen have pistols (and at certain times, long arms) to demonstrate authority. That is why they carry guns in full view while private citizens, even those given proper licenses, cannot show theirs. Policemen also have guns to use in their peacekeeping duties. In other words, firearms are not entrusted to policemen primarily to be used for killing.
Only the courts can declare a person a criminal. No person shall be deprived of his life without due process. When judges decide that a certain person is guilty of any crime, only then may that person be called a criminal. No one else can do that. Even the president cannot just label a person criminal. I have not heard the Pope name anyone a criminal not so found by the judiciary. Certainly not any member of the PNP.
Yet, the news report projects an unmistakable constitutional breach. I can foresee a policeman confronting a person and, because of resistance, shoots him dead. The policeman assumes the role of the judge. By calling the shooting victim a criminal, the policeman exempts himself from any liability. He is not the criminal the victim is. And for killing the person Osmeña rewards him P50,000. If this scene is not disturbing, then I must confess to be totally ignorant of how our legal system works.
Osmeña tried to give a legal leg to his pronouncement saying this amount is intended to help the policeman pay for the lawyer who shall defend him. Good publicity! Unfortunately, it is illegal. The principle is "ours is a government of laws and not of men". In this context, Osmeña assumes there is a case filed against the policeman. That criminal case should be called "People of the Philippines vs Policeman So-and-So." Osmeña's reward is a part of public funds. When Osmeña slices a small portion of the taxes contributed by the people and gives it as financial support to the policeman, he fights the People of the Philippines.
The result of Osmeña pronouncement subjects Cebu City residents to unnecessary perils. I hope that I err in my perception that Osmeña's concept is theoretically flawed and technically warped. Really, the observation arising from his announcement to reward P50,000 to a cop who kills a criminal, we have suddenly come to live in dangerous times, is, no matter how unpleasant, not entirely erroneous. In rewarding a policeman who might have felled another without clear-cut parameters designed to safeguard a civilian, Osmeña might have launched a juggernaut.
Before blood flows in our city, I suggest Osmeña review his stand. Because he is as hardheaded as many among us are, his seeking counsel from the learned is advisable.