EDITORIAL — Is it fair for all cops?

For its rank-and-file members to be able to apply for promotion in rank, the Philippine National Police is now requiring them to submit affidavits of arrest to serve as proof of accomplishment.

“So for our rank and file, our patrolmen, corporals, and sergeants, and our lieutenants who are seeking promotion, the points from their affidavit of arrest will be a major metric…If you want to be promoted, an affidavit of arrest will be one of the things we'll ask for and require. This is just to be fair to all those people on the ground,” he was quoted as saying in a Philstar.com report.

He said it is his way of encouraging policemen to take suspects alive, as supposed to the dismal record of the PNP during the previous administration when many crime suspects were shot dead after they allegedly did a “nanlaban”.

We suppose this makes sense. We would rather see suspects arrested and face due process as opposed to being shot dead. An arrest record is also actually a good barometer for how good a policeman is doing, but then again it may not be fair for all men and women in police uniform.

Is this fair for policemen who are actually doing well in their jobs and deserve a promotion but are assigned to offices that aren’t directly involved in operations against criminal activity? Or those policemen assigned to places where crime isn’t as prevalent as in others? Or those policemen who don’t get to go on patrol as often as others do?

Also, there is the legitimate concern that it will lead to a desire to just accumulate arrest records on the part of policemen, regardless of whether someone really needed to be arrested or not.

Some time has yet to pass before we can see if this system works or not. Hopefully, it will produce policemen who are always on the lookout for crime, and not those who want to arrest people just to pad their numbers.