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SENATE
President Manuel Villar wants the government to lay out
a multiyear police-modernization program that would put
premium on police visibility and provide law enforcers
ready equipment.
Villar
said a police force that can respond to distress calls
in minutes and can “outshoot and outrun” criminals is
the “fear factor” needed to keep crime at bay.
He added
that “tough laws are useless if it will take ages for
policemen to arrive at a crime scene, riding pedicabs
and armed with guns that are nothing more than museum
pieces.”
“State-of-the-art laws on crime are only as good as
state-of-the-art crime- fighting equipment,” he said.
“We can debate the death penalty to death, but whether
it remains out of our statutes or back, one thing is
certain: If people would know for sure that they will be
caught and convicted for committing a crime, then they
will think twice about it.”
At the
same time, Villar clarified that calls for the
reimposition of capital punishment should not “distract
the need to attack crime from the administrative side.”
For a
start, he added, the government can speed up the
utilization of funds allocated in the 2008 national
budget for more police officers, patrol cars and service
firearms.
Congress, Villar noted, already appropriated P1.258
billion for the hiring of 3,000 police officers (P588
million), purchase of 500 patrol vehicles (P394
million), procurement of 5,000 firearms (P176.2 million)
and construction of police stations (P100 million).
Admitting that these are not enough for a country whose
population grows by 1.8 million a year, Villar said the
government should draw up a 10-year police-modernization
plan that will wipe out existing manpower and equipment
backlog and accommodate future needs.
“Revenues must be earmarked for these expenses. For
example, at our present population growth rate, ideally
we need to recruit 3,600 new officers annually, at a
cost of P250,000 per head in training, equipment and
initial year salary, or P900 million in all,” he said.
“We also have to buy more patrol cars or motorcycles
because, while on paper, the National Police has 8,000
vehicles in its fleet, most of these are under or beyond
repair, and are headed for the scrap heap.”
He also
insisted that a program to upgrade the radio and
telephone equipment of the National Police must be
started now. “The P20-million allocated for the ‘117’
emergency dialing system for this year is not enough.
Some police stations have resorted to handing out their
own cellular-tephone numbers for the public to call, but
it is the officers who buy not only the equipment but
also the e-load.”
“There
must also be a constant stream of new service firearms
to replace the old ones and to put them on the hands of
the rookies. We cannot afford to have a gunless police
force,” he said, adding that the police-modernization
plan should also include the creation of a helicopter
unit to address the unique need of the people-crammed
Mega Manila, which now practically stretches from Lucena
City in Quezon province to Clark Free Port in Pampanga.
“In
pursuit operations, it will be hard to do it on streets
choked with traffic. It will be quicker to send men by
air if something happens in Cabuyao, for example,” he
said. “But as we set in place the multiyear National
Police Modernization Program, the principles of
accountability and transparency should be taken into
consideration.” |
