MANILA, Philippines — The Makati police chief denied on Monday that his men were targeting transgender women for profiling in the city’s red light district at Barangay Poblacion as part of a crackdown on criminality.
“There’s no such thing as ‘Oplan X-Men,’” Col. Rogelio Simon told reporters after a closed-door meeting with members of the LGBTQI community and officials from the city’s Department of the Interior and Local Government.
“What we have is an anticriminality campaign directed [at everyone] regardless of their sexuality or gender, [at] all forms of crimes perpetrated by all individuals. We are not singling out members of the [LGBTQI] community,” he said.
According to Simon, the police operations in Poblacion, which did not have a codename, were being conducted to rescue trafficking victims in the city.
As for Oplan X-Men, he clarified that “the name just evolved through informal conversations (‘kwentuhan’) among the police officers.”
He said he had “admonished” the Makati police’s Station Community Affairs and Development Section (SCADS) for using the name “when we don’t have a basis for it.”
Members of the LGBTQI community earlier unearthed a Jan. 23 post made by SCADS on its social media announcing that it had carried out the night before “Oplan X-Men, an intensified operation that aims to rescue ladyboys from exploitation and human trafficking in ill-repute areas.”
Viral video
But what drew their outrage was the video posted on social media by a transwoman, Anne Pelos, who was walking on Makati Avenue on Feb. 14 when she was invited by two Makati police officers to their station “for profiling.”
Simon said he had already ordered the relief of the officers concerned.
“After I watched the video myself, I saw there were errors on the part of my police officers in their approach and the manner they spoke to [Pelos]. Anyone will get offended. They also seemed not [to] know what they were talking about,” he added.
But he explained that the two lawmen had just been assigned to the city, which is why “they haven’t mastered yet our anticriminality interventions.”
Still, Simon maintained there was “nothing wrong” if those being invited voluntarily went with the police and disclosed their personal details.
He said that profiling, when done properly, would help solve cases, especially the high number of crimes involving foreigners in the area of Burgos Street, Makati Avenue and Kalayaan Avenue in Poblacion.
This was also the sentiment of Philippine National Police chief Archie Gamboa who said he saw nothing wrong with the Makati City police’s Oplan X-Men.
Right to refuse
“When a person is invited to a police station, you can go or … you have the right to refuse,” Gamboa told reporters during a press briefing at Camp Crame.
But he admitted that he had no idea that the Makati City police was implementing the campaign.
He added that the PNP would only conduct an investigation of Oplan X-Men if there were complaints that transgenders were being coerced to go to the police station to give their personal details.
“If there is, then we shall investigate but if there is none, there is nothing wrong with policemen inviting people to the station. And if you voluntarily give your information, there is nothing wrong [with that],” he said.
Dindi Tan, LGBT Pilipinas secretary general, and a transwoman herself, said they agreed during the closed-door meeting that Makati policemen, especially those newly assigned to the city, would undergo a gender sensitivity training in partnership with their group.