In response to PNP chief Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa’s plan to impose a nationwide curfew for minors, Senator Kiko Pangilinan said the PNP should instead run after the syndicats victimizing the minors, and not the minors themselves.
Why are police anti-crime efforts almost always focused on children? Should not PNP chief Bato focus on the syndicates exploiting children? It is a crime to use children, especially for crime, just as it is a crime for parents to neglect their children. Going after the children instead of the syndicates is condoning poor and sloppy police work.
Even in the example he gave, of the drug lord in Davao City who uses children playing online computer games to distribute illegal drugs, shouldn’t the drug lord be blamed and arrested instead?
He also wondered if the children are the only ones that the police can go after and punish while syndicates go scot-free.