Recto reminds DBM, PNP: Heed SC order requiring bodycams
SENATE President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto reminded the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Department of the Interior and the Local Government (DILG) to set aside funds to promptly comply with a Supreme Court directive for Philippine National Police (PNP) operatives to wear body cameras in serving warrants.
In a statement on Wednesday, Recto sought PNP’S full compliance with the timely release of funds to buy the necessary equipment.
“The Supreme Court’s statements that it will soon order the mandatory use of body cameras in the serving of warrants should be a signal to the DBM and the DILG to include funds for their purchase in the 2022 national budget,” the senator said, adding: “Sinabi na ng Korte Suprema. Ihanda na ang pondo. Hindi pwedeng idahilan na walang abiso [The high court has spoken. Please ready the funds. You can’t use as an excuse that no notice was made].”
The Senate President Pro Tempore stressed that the SC’S two statements on the issue in a span of one week should be treated by agencies concerned as a “judicial notification.”
Recto reminded the agencies that “the High Court made it clear it would promulgate rules on the use of body cameras by law enforcers whenever they serve search or arrest warrants,” adding that the DBM and DILG should take this as a cue “to create budget space for body cameras in next year’s spending bill.”
He stressed there was “no need to wait for the formal court order,” and officials should ready funding for body camera acquisition in the PNP “shopping list for 2022. [The] Supreme Court directive was emphatic,” he added, partly in Filipino.
As preparations for the 2022 national budget, projected to add up to P5 trillion, are under way, the Senate
President Pro Tempore recalled that the “Budget Call” which sets the parameters of next year’s national budget and its preparation timetable was issued by the DBM on January 6.
The PNP’S tight budget for capital outlay is often less than 2 percent of the PNP’S annual appropriations, Recto noted, and this should be enlarged to include the body camera purchase.
This year, he noted, only P3.6 billion out of the PNP’S P191.1-billion total budget is for “new buildings, cars, guns,” items that fall under capital outlay. “There’s no funding for body cam,” Recto added.
When police operate they should follow a “bodycam on the chest, and a dashcam on the car” rule.
“The missing but vital equipment in policing, video recording devices, is common technology in this Facebook Live age when food delivery guys have them,” he said. “But once given funds for body cameras, the PNP should make the purchase immediately and prevent a repeat of the debacle when it took 4 years and five PNP chiefs to buy some 2,600 body cams.”
Recto recalled that after failed biddings of a 2017 allotment, the PNP finally took hold of the cameras early this year and are reportedly drafting protocols for their use. But if only 2,600 units is the annual number of bodycams the PNP can buy, he said “it will take 100 years” to provide every policeman with one.
He added: “And about 20 years if the target is to buy 40,000, on the assumption that only one in every five officers would need to wear one at any given time.”
The Senator envisioned that once “played in court, the footage is evidence hard to refute. It will also ensure that SOP is followed during operations. And it cuts both ways. It protects citizens from abuse, and the police from unfounded charges of abuse.” Butch Fernandez