GOTCHA What PNP needs next, after pay doubling

Pleading for doubling of uniformed men’s pay on the fourth day in office of Rody Duterte, I only half expected the new President and Congress to take heed. (See Gotcha, 4 July 2016: http://beta.philstar.com/opinion/2016/07/04/1599331/double-salary-policemen) Past administrations preferred to grant meager raises to all instead of a substantial one to a neglected segment of state employees. A year and a half later, however, it came true.

I had compared then the monthly pay of the 4-star PNP Director General – P67,500 – with that in several sectors:

• Supervisor, medium-size listed stock company, P60,000-P80,000;

• Assistant Vice President in such company, P180,000-P400,000;

• Minimum wage, US, P60,375 ($7.50/ hr.x175h rs ./ mo.xP 46);

• US Army private, P71,162 ($1,547/ mo. x P46);

• US Army 4-star general, P695,750 ($15,125/mo. x P46).

So niggardly was our lowest ranking Police Officer-1’s salary of P14,834. The rate moved up in increments of P2,000P8,500 to that of a 3-star PNP Deputy Director General’s P59,210.

With the pay doubling to start this Jan. 2018, what does the PNP need next? New Sec. of Interior Ed Año, as Cabinet supervisor for the PNP, said his marching orders from Commander-in-Chief Duterte are two-fold: upgrade its capability and restore public faith in it. He has just retired as Armed Forces chief, and can apply military basics to the civilian police. Army and police objectives differ; the former’s is to overpower the enemy, the latter’s is to protect the community. Both operate on Spartan budgets. Yet public esteem for soldiers is high. Cops need rigorous molding through stricter:

• Recruitment. The higher pay can attract better rookies – respected young men and women in communities and schools. Their backgrounds and psychological makeup should be checked. No more repeats of widespread cheating in application exams, via questionnaire leakage by extortionate recruitment officers and payoffs by unsavory aspirants.

• Training. Separating the worthy from the weak is crucial to police work. Constant honing in physical fitness, investigation, and leadership brings out the best in officers. Totally wrong is a police general’s assigning of bodyguards to his weakling son at boot camp. The latter cannot earn the respect of the demoralized fellow-trainees.

• Promotion and posting. Officers and men must not just be put together to fill up vacancies in units. Through screening, each one’s proficiency can match the others’ to form outstanding teams. Politics and “palakasan” erode the police force like rust to metal.

• Equipage. Being lined up are procurements of individual mobile communications, body cameras, and bulletproof vests. Patrol cars are to be increased in rural police stations, and helicopters in big cities. Cops need always to be better equipped than the criminals they go after.

• Discipline. It is illusory to think that the higher pay would reform the extortionate cop. He already is used to wrongdoing, so must be weeded out. What the higher pay can do is help the good cop shun temptation, lest he lose his job and potential retirement pension. Deploying cops to Mindanao as punishment for serious wrongs will not correct them. They would even elude justice where they committed misdeeds and turn into worse lawbreakers. (Soldiers tasked to liberate Marawi from Maute terrorists recently resented the deployment in their midst of undisciplined cops from Metro Manila.)

• Benefits. Imagine a patrolman living in the slums, and on leaving for or coming home from work must pass through the alley where neighborhood toughies will shove to his face a “tagay” of rum. He must oblige in the hope that no harm would befall his wife and kids when he’s on 48-hour red alert at the station. Despite the extra pay, they deserve housing, medical, and hospitalization benefits, not stolen by mobs or crooked finance officers.

Properly trained, equipped and motivated cops will not shoot first and ask questions later. They would stay cool, instinctively follow the rules of engagement, and first secure civilians. They will not fall for false tips, like from illegally armed barangay watchmen, that certain civilians are criminals when in fact the victims. Confident in themselves, their gear, and teammates, they will perform beyond expectations. Outstanding performance becomes routine in elite corps.

Interviewed last weekend in Sapol, Año said he would reintroduce to the PNP two doctrines from the AFP. One, constant seminars on human rights. Two, keeping individual scorecards of work, to track on-time completion, for monitoring by each cop and his superior.

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What’s with today’s teenagers, parents and grandparents wonder. So unlike them in their youths, adolescents nowadays do not break rules, start brawls, or hang out till past midnight in soda fountains. They start drinking late and less, not chugging but only sipping; and shun substance abuse, from coffee and cigarettes to liquor and drugs. Even if they exchange explicit photos, they engage in sex later. That’s largely because of parental guidance. With smaller families, parents are able to give children more quality time.

But the teenagers also are more isolated, and tend to have a harder time making friends. Read more about it in this week’s issue of The Economist: http://www.economist.com/news/international/21734365-they-are-also-lonelier-and-more-isolated-teenagers-are-betterbehaved-and-less?frsc=dg%7Ce. Come to think of it, what would the world be with future leaders less sociable and more into themselves?

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

More rigorous screening, training, and discipline can restore public faith in policemen.