Deputizing the PNP to execute a NON-JUDICIAL or NON-QUASI JUDICIAL ORDER is just PLAIN WRONG
Pre-Semester Non-Lecture Analysis 39
It might be the last straw to break the camel’s back. Throwing South Drive into a military hamlet sent a blood-curdling message down the spine of peaceful and freedom-loving Baguio residents.
So this is how pocket martial law can be implemented, camouflaged by the trappings of a leadership dispute over at BENECO. You don’t see tanks and armed personnel carriers—yet—just riot shields and reflectorized vest-clad storm troopers for now. But the swiftness, stealth and impunity by which a petty government agency that doesn’t even have regional or district offices can hijack a complete utility infrastructure without a single court order is ominous. And to do it by ordering combat units toting M-16 Armalites to run roughshod over a couple of hapless “batuta”-equipped security guards puts the Gestapo to shame.
Deputizing the police is a dangerous toy to mess around with. That’s why the law is loathe to use it too often. When the Commission on Election (COMELEC) deputizes the police during an election, it is always as a last resort in the context of foisting a state-sponsored balance between rival quarters in an election hotspot. Two other constitutional commissions—the Civil Service Commission and the Commission on Audit—don’t even have a similar power. If a graft-ridden government agency locks up its books to conceal financial malfeasance, all state auditors can do is pelt them with “notices of disallowance” and all kinds of creative audit alert bluffery. The COA doesn’t even have a prosecution arm. And it cannot call the PNP to pick the locks of a recalcitrant record officer’s work desk or gym locker. Ditto for the Civil Service Commission.
Come to think of it: even Congress frowns on deputizing the police to do its biding. Its subpoenas are served by their own sergeant-at-arms.
Even the office of the Vice-President of the Philippines has never so much as sent the PNP on an errand to buy doughnuts—let alone to flag down motorists along South Drive on arbitrary inspection, in search of bad intentions.
Until NEA showed up in Baguio bristling in chainmail and armor, you’d be hardpressed to think of any other government agency that still does that in the post-martial law era, as a matter of course—deputizing out-of-town cops to demonstrate the “rule of law.”
And yet, there was something different about this one. The police were not deployed to foist State-sponsored neutrality. They were ranged AGAINST the people. They were constituted into a spontaneous private army owing no allegiance to the PNP Rules of Engagement. They didn’t have to wear nametags and if asked were not code-bound to give you name, rank and serial number. You’re even hissed at if you aim a camera–which every cellphone is these days—at them or at their direction. “You have to talk to our superior commanding officer.” Who is this superior commanding officer? “That information is classified.” How hard is it to say Darth Vader?
Who the fruit do these people think they are? And all of this, remember, WITHOUT a court order. NEA has quasi-judicial powers but not enough to morph into a court. The dangerous precedent this sets is that the next time government wants to experiment with curtailing your rights just a tiny little bit more, it never has to go to court. Then those little indiscretions dilate slightly bigger, who’s to notice. Deputizing law enforcement with neither law nor court order to enforce is the slippery slope to soon doing everything warrantless. Then WHO would still respect the courts?
I don’t know who to ask except the Inquisitive Baguio People, a loosely-organized coffee-drinking gossip group.
Unless a more noble professional group with similar initials decides to speak up, of course.
Knock on wood.
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”