PRESIDENT Aquino ought to stop defending Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Alan Purisima from allegations of incompetence and corruption. He has done this twice already, amid calls from anticrime groups that Purisima should go because of the involvement of not a few policemen in criminal activities and mounting evidence that the country’s top cop has accumulated wealth way beyond his legal remuneration.
The prudent thing for the President to do is to refrain from expressing unqualified support for someone hounded by allegations of corruption and incompetence, and to ask him to explain his side first.
For Mr. Aquino to clear Purisima of any wrongdoing just because he has known the latter for so long—Purisima, I understand, was PNoy’s bodyguard during the Cory Aquino administration—sends the wrong message that he puts longstanding friendship, rather than performance and integrity, above everything else. This would tend to reinforce the belief that the “KKK”—kaklase, kaibigan at kabarilan (classmates, friends and shooting buddies)—are untouchable or sacred cows.
As things now stand, the PNP suffers from a credibility problem that not even acts of heroism by police officers on the ground can offset.
As PNP chief, Purisima is supposed to lead the cops in fighting crime on the ground. But with reports of cops getting involved in every kind of criminal activity, from murder to extortion and hulidap, Purisima has not been heard from, preferring to let his spokesmen do the talking.
Then there’s television footage of properties said to be owned by Purisima in Nueva Ecija province that appear to be multimillion-peso structures he could not have possibly earned through his salary and allowances alone since he assumed the top PNP post.
The trouble is that Purisima is not media-friendly at all. That can be interpreted in two ways. One, he prefers to do his work quietly, without any media fanfare. But we seldom hear him convening command conferences, inspecting police offices in the regions or taking decisive steps in disciplining erring cops. Or two, he does not want to face the media because it would be very difficult for him to articulate his side, as the evidence against him is too overwhelming, and he could very well incriminate himself.
The PNP has two official spokesmen at present. The chief of the Public Information Office (PIO) at Camp Crame is supposed to speak on his behalf on matters pertaining to the institution, such as crime incidence or updates on the investigation of high-profile cases. But Purisima has also appointed someone who is supposed to speak only for him, not the institution, but I have yet to see this spokesman since Day One of his appointment. Thus, the allegations of wrongdoing against Purisima have persisted, despite efforts by the PIO to make him available to the media.
Camp Crame has responded to the allegations by saying that critics are obviously driven by a hidden agenda, since Purisma went abroad to attend an international conference, that he has been unfairly attacked by critics while he is abroad and, therefore, unable to defend himself. This argument is untenable, as Purisma has, in fact, two spokesmen authorized to speak on his behalf.
The other defense of Camp Crame is that the attacks on Purisima are aimed at maligning the institution itself. But a recent Facebook post by a group that claims to be composed of Crame insiders has details of what they consider to be the PNP chief’s indiscretions. That these are coming to light shows that there is unrest or restiveness within the institution that cannot be glossed over.
What could help Purisima’s cause would probably be a manifesto of full and unswerving support from the top echelon of the PNP, including regional and provincial police directors. But coming from the PNP, this could be seen as merely self-serving. If such a manifesto of support is signed, as well, by credible national and local government officials, civil-society groups, the Church and academe, among others, then that would be a very powerful statement.
What is working against Purisima is that he has antagonized the Senate with his nonappearance in committee hearings, with Sen. Grace Poe making no secret of her displeasure over his snub of her committee’s probe on PNP modernization. Even former senator and PNP chief Panfilo Lacson believes that Purisima should, at the very least, take a leave of absence and spare President Aquino from making a difficult decision to fire him if the evidence of corruption is overwhelming.
With his back increasingly being pressed against the wall, Purisima’s options are getting fewer and fewer.
Purisima could answer the issue of incompetence and failure to stop fellow police officers from being involved in crime by saying that the process of transforming the PNP will take time, or that only a handful of the 150,000 or so cops have been charged with criminal and administrative offenses. But the unexplained-wealth issue may be the more difficult one to answer, as investigative work by the media has unearthed concrete evidence.
If Purisima cannot adequately defend himself from the hidden wealth charge, then he has no choice but to tender his irrevocable resignation and hand over the reins of the PNP to capable hands.
If Purisima cannot defend himself, PNoy has no business defending his protector to high heavens.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.