Police violence: A case of bad apples or a rotten tree?
Philippe Angelo Hiñosa
On September 18, 2018, my cousin, Leo, was shot dead by the police in an anti-drug operation just a block away from our house.
Upon learning about it from my brother, who was then a mountain away from my university, I was completely devastated. In an instant, my mind went blank. My body froze. My limbs hardened. My heart raced as if I, too, was being pursued by armed men. I stared at his message, reading it over and over. Patay si Leo. Gintokhang. (Leo is dead; he was slain in Tokhang.) I was dumbfounded. “Paano?” was the only question I sent him, to which he responded, “Ginsal-an.” (Accused)
I couldn’t go home as badly as I wanted to. At the time, I was in my first year and had school-related activities that I couldn’t afford to miss. So instead, I scoured Facebook for news on Leo’s killing to see how the incident unfolded from the perspective of the police. I found one. But when I read it, I was overcome with rage.
According to them, the hour Leo was gunned down, he sold a sachet of shabu to their undercover and tried to evade capture by firing, forcing them to react and shoot. They discovered a pistol with a fired cartridge and live bullets, a lighter, aluminum foil, and cash from the hut he was sleeping in.
The police had killed not one, but two victims that night: Leo and the truth. My family and I knew he couldn’t do it. But, fearful of what could happen if we spoke up, we bit our tongue for a long time, until I could no longer bear looking at the incident as an isolated case of “bad policing”, when police violence continued, and even intensified, year after year.
Police violence is characterized by the illegal use of force, as proven by the killing of Leo. This contradicts the rule of the Philippine National Police Operational Procedures, which states that the police may only use “necessary and reasonable force to overcome resistance, restrain an impending threat, or justify self-defense or protection of others, after issuing a verbal warning to the offender.” It is not a product of a few “bad apples,” but of the institution to which they belong — the “rotten tree.” How so?
Militarized culture
The institution forms a rigid power structure based on strict and specific chains of command. The instructors, or models, who are senior in rank, have authority over police recruits. As a result, their orders are rarely questioned. The recruits simply rationalize and obey them regardless of the implications. They do so because they think, or have been acclimatized to believing, that it is part of their training, the nature of which, according to its graduates, is comparable to that of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA).
Recruits go through rigorous and systematic training to master operational procedures that require them to pay attention to the models who train them, register their behavior, process it, and then imitate what they have observed.
This explains why recruits are trained more as soldiers than police officers, and why the PNP, whose civilian tasks vary mostly from military functions, has a highly militarized character and acts as a paramilitary force. Many of its senior and mid-level officials are graduates of PMA (which employs officers for the Armed Forces), resulting in the blurring and blending of roles.
The more recruits imitate their models, the more they adhere to the institution’s standards, the less punishment they receive, and the more likely they are to repeat the same behavior, criminal or not. Leo’s killing is an example of the former.
Political patronage
The police are more loyal to the state than the people. Why? Simple. They are cogs to the repressive state apparatus. Just as recruits are re-socialized when they enter the institution, the “criminal behavior” of the police is likewise learnt through a network of political interactions.
The police commit violence not because they are incapable of rationalizing their surroundings or have a biological predilection for it, but because they have come to believe that the criminal behaviors performed by their models and the institutions that socialized them are without a doubt correct. Thus, police that undertake anti-drug operations in the name of Tokhang believe, as they have been conditioned by their models to think so, that individuals like Leo, even if wrongfully accused, generate drug problems. They target them rather than the system because their models, such as former president Rodrigo Duterte, said so.
Throughout Duterte’s regime, he encouraged the police to kill alleged drug personalities, most of whom were poor, saying, “If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.” He added, “Do your duty, and if in the process you kill 1,000 people because you were doing your duty, I will protect you.” Enticed by rewards of appointment and promotion, the police perform the criminal behavior.
Establishment violence
In the grand scheme of things, Leo’s case highlights the institution’s long-standing and deep-seated establishment violence, or vigilantism, which predates Duterte. The killing of individuals who allegedly violate the social order is one of its objectives. This is demonstrated by the propensity of the police to engage in criminal behavior to achieve goals.
Learning criminal behavior involves learning establishment violence. When Duterte declared that “vigilante justice no longer needs to be hidden from public scrutiny,” the “nanlaban” narrative became popular and legitimate.
A report published by the international group Human Rights Watch revealed that the PNP was indeed responsible for the vigilante-style execution of suspected drug personalities in the country.
It is no wonder that today impunity continues to reign here, making justice for Leo all the more elusive four years after his death. Whatever else is said about it, the truth remains that removing the bad apples won’t change the fact that the tree, the institution that produced them, is equally rotten. The way to solve the issue of police violence is to cut it down from the roots.
