"Unfortunately, that is all General Eleazar has."
"Unfortunately, that is all General Eleazar has."
When one’s term of office is only six months, there is really not much that one can do. Before that person can even begin to warm his chair, he would be preparing for his retirement parade.
Clearly, there is something wrong with this system.
Still, by all indications, Police General Guillermo Eleazar started his short stint as Chief of the Philippine National Police doing all the right things. Asked whether six months is too short for him, he said that if he can do something to bring back the trust of the people in the Police, it will be all worth it. He has also opened files on suspicious encounters between the police and suspected drug syndicates that resulted in the death of the suspects. This move has elicited the grudging respect of perennial critics, notably the human rights advocates. It is something that his recent predecessors did not dare touch.
Eleazar became PNP Chief carrying no baggage. On the contrary, when the pandemic started, he was the face of the government response to the pandemic. He was always on the frontlines. But leadership of the entire PNP calls for a different leadership style. He is no longer simply the commander; he must now also be a diplomat representing his organization in the rough-and-tumble jungle that we call politics. Fortunately, from what we have seen so far, he is doing a good job. There is therefore a big chance that even with a short tenure, he can leave a positive and lasting legacy.
As a former PNP officer, I have seen many PNP and Constabulary chiefs come and go. Almost all of them wanted to reform the organization and leave some kind of legacy. Some did fairly well while many are probably not worth remembering. They also had one common problem. Their tours of duty as chiefs were much too short for them to be able to institute meaningful reforms.
The exception to this is former President Fidel V. Ramos. He was Chief of Constabulary for about 12 years which beat the record of Brig. General Rafael Crame. The favorite choice of most PNP Chiefs when it comes to reform is to make war on police corruption. This has been a constant refrain of PNP chiefs: Declaring war on corrupt police personnel.
The problem however, is that corruption seems to be deeply embedded in the police psyche or culture that nothing seems to work. It is a war that is difficult to win. This is because sufficient time is needed to change police behavior and culture.
Time is the one commodity that PNP chiefs do not have. There is no fixed tenure of office for a PNP chief. Other chiefs, upon assuming office, want to do a lot all at once and end up accomplishing nothing when they retire. There are some that I have seen who simply prepared for retirement and never even tried to undertake any reform effort.
There is now a legislative effort to amend the retirement law of uniformed personnel. The plan is to change the retirement age from 56 to 65, at least for officers. Retiring all officers at age 65, however, is a bad idea. We need our frontline commanders to be relatively young and fit. The problem after all is in the tenures of the Chief, PNP and the AFP Chief of Staff.
Having an attrition system that is strictly implemented should be enough to keep good officers longer in the service while weeding out excess inefficient officers.
There is now an opportunity for Congress to finally enact a law mandating term limits for the chief of the PNP and the AFP chief of staff. Eleazar obviously will not be able to benefit from any change in the retirement law. He will retire in November.
I do not know how he and his advisers intend to tackle the remaining months of his service. His predecessor, after all, left him with many challenges and will no doubt also leave his replacement some challenges. Perhaps he should simply concentrate on improving the image of the PNP. He is well suited for it considering that he can carry himself well in his many media interviews.
The opening of the PNP files on the drug war is a big deal. It shows he is serious when it comes to human rights and willing to dialogue with government critics. If he accomplishes nothing else in the remaining months of his service, this move alone would all be worth it.
Six months is not really enough to prove one’s worth and as the saying goes, too short for a good chief of the PNP. Unfortunately, that is all he has.
