http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20080522-138045/3-RCBC-massacre-suspects-killed-in-Tanauan-City

I wanna be totally objective about the incident and hope a proper and fair investigation will be conducted by the NBI to determine whether the death of the suspects are justified.

This comes only a day after the lone suspect in the Calamba massacre was also killed in a 15-minute shooting match with the police.

But, I fear, putting the control of police back to them feeble-minded-small-town-mayors will turn an inefficient police force into a non-existent police force. You only have to be reminded of the way these police were used by mayors to be their goons and hitmen, and as such, the trust with police forces totally eroded. Do you want to go back to that “zero trust of Police” environment as opposed to our “little trust of Police” environment that we have right now?

There are ways to improve the National Police, and I don’t think giving them back to imbecilic, megalomaniac small-town/small-time mayors is a solution.

I’m not an advocate of the death penalty. I don’t think it is a deterrent. I mean, drug dealers, bank robbers— criminals live each day with the threat of death on their head. They still do the thing they do, day in, day out. What makes anybody think, we the people can scare them that way?

OK, our jails are… well the next thing to hell i suppose but even that isn’t a deterrent.

The Philippines is like the Wild West.

But you are right. We need a better justice system. Not just a justice system that fast tracks cases, and makes it to put it bluntly economically viable to seek judgment from the court but also a police that well, actually works.

How many bank robberies occurred in Manila in the last 12 months? And how many did the police solve? A lot of crimes happen in Manila and Police can’t respond for the simple reason that they have no way to communicate with one another to direct and commit assets into play. That’s in Manila, what more outside of it?

Like many services in the Philippines— hospitals, education, fire fighting, jails etc., the National Police is stretched thin. It is a monolithic system that has assets committed at the wrong places. It is inefficient by the nature of its “hugeness”.

If I remember correctly the reason for a national police was a fear that local government would use the Police as their own private army. 20 years later, people still have private armies and we have an ineffective national police. I hate to say it, perhaps all these services should be sent back to Local Government so each City/Town/Province would know exactly just how much of what is needed and can afford, instead of everything being so out of sync.

Even if that doesn’t happen, there are things that can be done to improve the delivery of justice. Give police a communications system. Give them radios, whether or not they’re walking the street. What good is police, if you can’t get them coordinated to catch a perp? Give their squad cars ,radios and the police helicopter a radio so all those pieces are in play and coordinated.

I don’t want police to be just walking the street, though that would be a good 2nd step after beefing up their communications system. They need to earn our trust that they can actually solve cases and not live in fear that the police will be taking advantage of people.

Putting in Cameras across the City would be a great idea, especially for post game analysis of big crimes and increased police presence.

Where is Justice without honor?

The next thing is the court. In a country where everything can easily be bought and paid for, even frivolous cases, even justice… having a fair Court of Law would be third best thing after the Police.

Well, it doesn’t solve all of the problems, but it’s much easier to entice a hungry man into rage than one who has a full stomach.

Besides, we should outgrow the “crime does not pay” naivette and recognize that it’s precisely why a lot of people turn to crime. Crime pays big, hard money — as in cold, cold cash. And that’s part of the reason people do it.

As for increasing the salaries of our policemen, I do agree that they need such, though I doubt if it will effectively decrease the number of policemen turning to criminal activity to augment their meager income. I think it’s more because of the taste of power that’s why some do these things.