Rappler editor-at-large Marites Vitug talks to Asian studies professor Patricio Abinales from the University of Hawaii-Manoa about the institutional weaknesses of the PNP and how these have led to the situation today. https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/videos-podcasts/265755-interview-patricio-abinales-pnp-institutional-weaknesses

Abinales gives a quick refresher on the history of the PNP: The police was actually formed in the American colonial period, so in 1901 they decided that there should be an internal police force to take over the US Army in policing insurgence, all that.

Abinales: In 1933, when President Quezon and McArthur set up the Philippine Army, the police shifted and created a state police which was then under the Interior department.

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Abinales: The debate was [on] who would take control of the police. The first attempt to centralize it was under Marcos when they created the Philippine Constabulary-Integrated National Police (PCINP).

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Abinales: In 1978, Marcos decided that the police should be involved in counterinsurgency operations. So nag-overlap ‘yung function ng army at police because the army was really a domestic army, it was not an external force.

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Abinales: That has been the situation now, and it’s become worse. The police are becoming more and more militarized.

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Abinales: In the kind of training policemen have in the US, which our policemen then get, is patterned after military operations. So if you look at #BlackLivesMatter [protests], yun mga police were really armed. Gano’n ang training ngayon with the police.

Abinales: At the same time, because the police were under the mayors, they were also poorly paid. And then basically you get appointed as a member of the police force via patronage politics kasi mayor ang may hawak.

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Abinales on why the police remain militarized: It [builds on] a habit. Marcos centralized the police, Duterte also centralized the police. That’s a big problem.

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Abinales: Second, it’s not well-defined. In theory, the army is supposed to be for external defense. But given the communist insurgency, our army became a domestic counter-insurgency force. In paper, it should be the police that should take care of that.

Abinales: What Duterte has done is revive something that Marcos did which is to give the police further leeway to engage in counter-insurgency operations in support of the army – providing intelligence, policing the towns, supposedly secondary.

Abinales: But in a lot of areas, they actually assume that they have the same importance as the military.

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Abinales on the drug war operations: If you noticed, the way they conduct the drug raids, it’s how the military conducts raids. There’s nothing different anymore.

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Abinales: Duterte just expanded the role of the police in terms of containing civil disturbances. The way they’re implementing this drug war is reminiscent of how the army and the marines conduct raiding operations.

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Abinales on demilitarizing the police: There are things you have to figure out. The training of the police. Who gets to be the policeman?

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Abinales: Second is the police is really also used by local officials in promoting their own interests, private security, it’s also very much tied to local politics.

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