TROUBLE’S brewing for a motorist who was in a Philippine National Police (PNP) shirt when he was caught on video berating and hitting a motorcycle driver in a traffic altercation.
The PNP has examined the video and found that the fuming motorist was not a real officer but a civilian identified as Gaylord Santos, a resident of Las Piñas City.
“According to the PNP Directorate for Personnel, the man named Gaylord Santos does not have any record as a police officer,” PNP spokesperson Chief Supt. Wilben Mayor said.
Santos was identified through the plate number—UEQ-399—of the Mitsubishi Adventure he was driving. The vehicle was registered in the name of his wife Mary Grace, Mayor said in a press briefing on Tuesday.
The police had started looking for Santos so they could sue him for usurpation of authority and violating Executive Order No. 297 which regulates the manufacture, sale, distribution and use of PNP uniforms, insignias and other accoutrements, Mayor added.
The PNP spokesperson also urged the motorcycle driver in the video to come forward and file complaints against Santos.
Mayor thanked netizens for being “vigilant” in exposing persons claiming to be law enforcers to commit abuses and crimes.
The video, posted online by Hayley Catacutan on Monday, captured the incident at a street corner near Rizal Park in Manila. It showed Santos getting off his vehicle to confront a motorcycle driver, shouting at him and then hitting him in the head.
Santos then returned to his vehicle, drove briefly to the side of the road and continued snarling at the motorcycle driver.
“He was on ‘beast mode,’” Catacutan said in her post, referring to the “policeman” in the video who was wearing a blue PNP patrol shirt. “We don’t know what actually happened, but this is too much. (He did it) just because he’s a policeman.”