MANILA, Philippines — Despite a number of controversies, including reports of abuse, the leadership of the Philippine National Police (PNP) has urged the public to still trust and not be afraid of the country’s police force.
PNP spokesperson Ildebrandi Usana said Tuesday that while there are “few bad eggs” in the institution, majority of the nation’s police remain committed to serving the public.
“Some of the accusations leveled against us may have come from those who’d like to destroy the government for the sake of it, yet if you look at how our people relate themselves with the police, they would always look up to our police officers as among those that really provide the kind of services that they deserve,” Usana said in an interview with INQUIRER.net.
There seemed to be nothing new when PNP members are being tagged in cases of misconduct, corruption, and abuse. Recently, some police officers were accused of abusing their authority when a supposed curfew violator in Cavite died after being forced to perform strenuous exercise routines as punishment.
Not too long ago, then-Police Senior Master Sergeant Jonel Nuezca was caught on video shooting dead his neighbors in Tarlac.
The PNP has also been criticized over the execution of President Rodrigo Duterte’s war against illegal drugs.
A recent report of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) stated that the PNP used “excess, unreasonable” force and had the “intent to kill” suspects during drug-related operations.
In spite of these, Usana still thinks the public should not be scared of the PNP “because after all, it’s an injustice also to more than 220,000 other police officers who are risking their lives.”
“We already have 17,000 plus positive of the virus among our police officers and to date, we have 46 casualties. We are actually risking our lives. We could have turned our attention to something else and pretend that nothing is happening around us even if we are being asked by our people for assistance, and yet we are still doing this 24/7,” he also pointed out.
According to Usana, 8,400 police erring police officers have already been dismissed since July 2016.
“The kind of Nuezca and some police officers who may have committed infractions of the law, all these are being attended to by the PNP. We never condoned any of their acts but this should not diminish the way the PNP is doing its best to provide our people the services that they need from us,” he said.