In coplandia

Again, for the nth time, the cops, our local Philippine National Police (PNP), are now under the scalpel (as sharp as those of Sen. Richard Gordon) of the Senate and the public over the so called “ninja cops.”

PNP chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde may just have to resign or retire unceremoniously and in shame, after years of serving the public, who at the end of the day, is the same public who would condemn him to hell.

I still recall, PNP chief Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa, now a senator, shedding tears in a Senate hearing over the alleged extrajudicial killings, as he stood behind his police officers and appealed to the public for understanding.

Of course, nobody shed tears with him. But I did as I remember well my first cousin, a good cop, a benevolent father and loving husband. He was shot mercilessly dead on the spot by criminals at a checkpoint in Quezon City in 1990.

It was around 30 minutes past 12 midnight, when he flagged down a car and politely approached the passengers and requested them to roll down the windows. Then three shots reverberated in the air — two shots on my cousin’s face and one in the chest. He died instantly.

His wife and my nephews still have to live with the painful memory of a loss and a much deeper pain since, to date, the culprits have never been brought to justice.

Law enforcement is the most dangerous form of public service.

As the quip goes, when a cop leaves his home for work, one foot is already right in the grave. Every day, every time a cop kisses his wife and kids goodbye for a day’s turn, it could be his last!

In fact, there is a proposal, similar to the United States, that each police station should have a resident psychologist who would be tasked to provide psychological and counseling services to the police personnel involved in operations that are life threatening, especially when a cop shoots down dead the criminals on site or is wounded in the process.

The psychologist counselor has the duty to bridge a fine line, a balance between primal fear and daring in the psycho-physical strands within the psyche of a cop.

In the United States, a cop who returns to his unit with blood in his hands, of course, in the pursuit of the criminal operation is automatically suspended for weeks in order to undergo psycho-spiritual therapy by the resident psychologist.

Of course, it is not man’s nature to kill. Whether the cop realizes it or not, killing, even in self-defense, is a traumatic experience that the subject should have to confront psychologically and spiritually.

As we have noted earlier above, law enforcement is the most dangerous form of public service compared to other public servants who are seated comfortably in swivel chairs, in air-conditioned session halls.

Coping with temptations to corrupt practices in the performance of their duties would be a lot more difficult issue to confront among law enforcers.

When your investment in your job is your own life and limb, then you would expect that the return on investment should be at par, at least enough to live on it when you finally bow out of service.

This is the bulk of the temptation and falling into it.

With a salary that is not even enough for a cop’s family to survive and still, the flak and derision from the public, as this same public seems to lump both police scalawags and the good ones together in one conglomerate, then the temptation fever rises to the level of no regrets — let’s just do it!

When the days of “coping” are about to be over and when at 56, there is still so much to live for, then the cop begins to ponder — a meager pension, a nice despedida among confreres? What about running for public office? But all these are cash-based. So, why not… at least before coping days are over.

Well, this is not an apologia for rogue cops, but a rationale, not a justification, for such dishonorable acts of the police personnel.

Judgement and vilification are easy, since no life and limbs are involved, perhaps, only a sore throat after chronic chatter during investigations.