Last Saturday, the 2nd of April, four active senior Philippine National Police officers were spotted by reporters in a hotel at the Araneta Center area having a meeting with a retired senior PNP officer identified with the camp of Mar Roxas. A senior military officer was also spotted in the same hotel.
The retired officer is Marcelo Garbo Jr. who up to this time has been reported to be still influencing the assignment of personnel in the PNP which is causing much demoralization among officers. In the recent reshuffle of senior officers for provincial and regional positions, for instance, Garbo had a big hand. It is well known in the PNP that Garbo is Roxas’ kind of man as Purisima was to President Aquino.
Expect him to be a major player in the PNP in a Roxas presidency which is not a good prospect for the PNP.
This also gives us a glimpse into the management style of Mar Roxas when comes to police management.
One of those who attended that meeting was Generoso R. Cerbo Jr. who is currently the Director of Intelligence in the PNP. It is a sensitive position considering that Cerbo’s office is the repository of all vital information gathered by the PNP including political intelligence. What was he thinking, meeting with a retired senior officer with known links to a presidential candidate in a public place?
For starters, maybe we should send these officers back to basic intelligence school. It was idiotic for them to have met in public. With people like that working for Mar Roxas, no wonder, he cannot seem to gain ground in spite of all the resources under his control. It is one stumble after another.
Although the spokesman of the PNP, Chief Supt. Wilben Mayor, was reported to be in the process of asking for an explanation from the officers concerned, old goats from the service know why they were there. It is what is called in the service as “militics.”
This refers to uniformed personnel getting involved in partisan politics for the purpose of advancing one’s career, an activity expressly prohibited by law and regulations but routinely violated by politicians and uniformed personnel alike. The involvement of military and police personnel in politics is nothing new. Politicians have the belief that recruiting uniformed personnel especially those in authority could provide them advantages over their opponents during political campaigns that civilians cannot provide.
Intelligence, for instance, is one area where uniformed men excel. They are better trained to collect and process intelligence reports for the candidates that they support. In the old days when counting was done manually, uniformed personnel can come in handy especially during the prevalence of private armies. Uniformed personnel for their part sometimes readily lend their expertise to politicians as a way of improving their careers by way of faster promotions and better assignments. In the police service, where one is assigned is key to faster promotions and secure retirement, one good assignment could take care of an officer when he retires.
There is, however, a slight difference in the military. Field assignments, more or less, are the same wherever one is assigned. A Battalion Commander or a Brigade Commander operating in Kalinga is not disadvantaged compared to a Battalion Commander or Brigade Commander operating in say Batangas or Laguna. In the PNP, there is a big difference between a provincial director in Kalinga and a provincial director of Laguna or Batangas. Police and military involvement in politics does not also only involve enterprising individuals wanting to advance their careers.
Sometimes, a whole Philippine Military Academy Class could decide to back a particular presidential candidate. In the case of the four senior PNP officers, they all belong to the PMA class of 1984, the class that adopted the Liberal Party and administration standard bearer Mar Roxas. In this case, the class of 1984 are forced to good, so to speak. They have no choice but support Mar Roxas because they know pretty well that if Roxas loses, they all will be consigned to the dog house.
The next logical question to ask is this: Are there other officers also backing other presidential candidates? The obvious answer is yes. There are indeed many officers who also have hinged their careers to other candidates but they keep their activities sub rosa for fear of being identified and relieved of their assignments. Usually, these are officers who are disgruntled by not being given preferential assignments or those who are considered outsiders by the ruling class. They too can provide valuable intelligence of what the administration is doing.
All those pronouncements about the non-involvement of the police and military in politics except to vote therefore, is all hog wash. In fact, the months before any national elections is a time of great anxiety to individuals, classes and other groups because those who back the winning horse always end up running the show in their organizations. Those who back the losing horse will have to lower their expectations and be satisfied with crumbs. That is simply the way it goes.
It is altogether an unfortunate state of affairs that this symbiotic relationship that currently exists between the politicians and uniformed personnel from the police, and to a certain extent, the military, will continue into the future unless a national leader comes along and reforms the system which is doing great harm to the reputations of both the police and the military.
Unless there is reform the police and the military can never achieve their potential to be truly professional organizations that could rightly propel them to be among the best.
