To serve and protect the people is the exclusive mandate that the PNP is given, or at least according to Razon. It's a mandate that time and again has been distorted in all shapes and sizes in order to fit the needs of several politicians in the land. Today, we commemorate the EDSA revolution 22 years ago that toppled a dictator. And though to this day we hear faint echoes of a dictatorship hiding beneath sheep's skin, we still wonder what exactly it is that the PNP is trying to tell the people. With the plan of staging a "unity walk" on the day the nation grinds to halt in order to look back at history, the PNP must be commemorating something else. Although much of the dreams born during the barbs and haywires of EDSA remain elusive but are still worth clamoring for, it's one thing to storm to EDSA by the flock of thousands, even millions, of Filipinos with the hunger for a systemic change more than two decades ago. It's entirely another to unitedly walk from EDSA and return to the barracks with the lingering thought and confidence that, perhaps, a "unity walk" is the best way to manifest the mandate of serving and protecting the people.
Exactly what does this "unity walk" aim to portray? Well, if you ask PNP Director General Avelino Razon, his statement that the PNP will not get itself be involved in politics gives us a swelling hint of some of the nation's worst ironies. To declare oneself, or the entire ranks and files, to abstain from fiddling with politics and yet to confess to stage a "unity walk" at the height of remembering EDSA with the same breath is a troubling sign to one's sensibilities. Even more so, to coerce your ranks and files to resist the temptation of foiling a macabre institution and of embracing the sentiment of the democracy do not feign innocence and ignorance, both at the same time, of having nothing to do with serving and protecting not the many but the chosen few. And this chosen few has been the sum of all that there is to corruption and the prostitution of the spirit of the constitution.
There is something trivial, if not equally obnoxious, about this unity walk by the police. For one, you have a group of men sworn to protect the citizenry from all threats to life and liberty freely marching with limbs and badges, parading themselves as a unified force behind someone or something remotely from the sentiment of the nation. On the other hand, you have the people who are physically absent in EDSA but are mentally and spiritually engaged with it, protesting against a government which has dragged its grotesqueness to EDSA and has defiled the shrine of history. For a moment, the PNP, or at least its top officials for that matter, are struck by the purported brilliancy of walking for a cause, a cause which is farfetch enough from the woes of those who condemn the corrupt practices that GMA herself has heard of. Which goes without saying that GMA was appalled by the news that the ZTE-NBN deal is grossly flawed. And then you stage a unity walk "to thwart calls for a military-backed People Power revolt" which ipso facto is synonymous to resisting the vox populi or something to that effect.
Since God or Allah made the world and the rest is made in China, GMA was hesitant enough to discard a deal with a Chinese firm for fear of some divine catastrophe or what have you. And since you cringe at the thought of another EDSA waiting to explode, verging somewhere between the palpable and the surreal, you begin to appease the police. What comes next is your dressing in the salad; your ranks and files of men in uniform disillusioned with the mantra of serving as one of the pillars of GMA in the hopes of preempting the erosion of the architecture of the administration. Then one begins to wonder why.
At the least, this "unity walk" is becoming a trend. And like the gullible fools who are cajoled upon the first sight of a fad, some are even more than willing to do yet another "unity walk" with badges and all, replicating the feat of their boss, acting less like purveyors of democracy and more like another carcass in the bandwagon of mechanical parrots. At the most, you get a sense of treachery, or the feeling that someone among the ranks and files is mandated to serve and protect the powers-that-be from the wrath of the democracy.
It is indeed a horrendous thought to witness some of the ranks and files of the men and women in uniform look back at history for a brief moment and walk away from it, perhaps even in unity, and return to their shacks with badges still intact and with the mandate to continue to grovel before the sinners like bootlickers.
Exactly what does this "unity walk" aim to portray? Well, if you ask PNP Director General Avelino Razon, his statement that the PNP will not get itself be involved in politics gives us a swelling hint of some of the nation's worst ironies. To declare oneself, or the entire ranks and files, to abstain from fiddling with politics and yet to confess to stage a "unity walk" at the height of remembering EDSA with the same breath is a troubling sign to one's sensibilities. Even more so, to coerce your ranks and files to resist the temptation of foiling a macabre institution and of embracing the sentiment of the democracy do not feign innocence and ignorance, both at the same time, of having nothing to do with serving and protecting not the many but the chosen few. And this chosen few has been the sum of all that there is to corruption and the prostitution of the spirit of the constitution.
There is something trivial, if not equally obnoxious, about this unity walk by the police. For one, you have a group of men sworn to protect the citizenry from all threats to life and liberty freely marching with limbs and badges, parading themselves as a unified force behind someone or something remotely from the sentiment of the nation. On the other hand, you have the people who are physically absent in EDSA but are mentally and spiritually engaged with it, protesting against a government which has dragged its grotesqueness to EDSA and has defiled the shrine of history. For a moment, the PNP, or at least its top officials for that matter, are struck by the purported brilliancy of walking for a cause, a cause which is farfetch enough from the woes of those who condemn the corrupt practices that GMA herself has heard of. Which goes without saying that GMA was appalled by the news that the ZTE-NBN deal is grossly flawed. And then you stage a unity walk "to thwart calls for a military-backed People Power revolt" which ipso facto is synonymous to resisting the vox populi or something to that effect.
Since God or Allah made the world and the rest is made in China, GMA was hesitant enough to discard a deal with a Chinese firm for fear of some divine catastrophe or what have you. And since you cringe at the thought of another EDSA waiting to explode, verging somewhere between the palpable and the surreal, you begin to appease the police. What comes next is your dressing in the salad; your ranks and files of men in uniform disillusioned with the mantra of serving as one of the pillars of GMA in the hopes of preempting the erosion of the architecture of the administration. Then one begins to wonder why.
At the least, this "unity walk" is becoming a trend. And like the gullible fools who are cajoled upon the first sight of a fad, some are even more than willing to do yet another "unity walk" with badges and all, replicating the feat of their boss, acting less like purveyors of democracy and more like another carcass in the bandwagon of mechanical parrots. At the most, you get a sense of treachery, or the feeling that someone among the ranks and files is mandated to serve and protect the powers-that-be from the wrath of the democracy.
It is indeed a horrendous thought to witness some of the ranks and files of the men and women in uniform look back at history for a brief moment and walk away from it, perhaps even in unity, and return to their shacks with badges still intact and with the mandate to continue to grovel before the sinners like bootlickers.
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