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Thursday, May 08, 2003
Editorial: Police fundraising
What is the difference between asking friends in business and industry to contribute a few thousand pesos, in cash or in kind, to a City Hall celebration, and asking police station and unit chiefs to contribute P1,000 each for food and drinks at a police ceremony?
In the first, the few thousand pesos won’t hurt, can be charged to public relations, may even be considered an investment.
In the second, the P1,000 from the pay of each station or unit commander can be a big sacrifice. It’s more than or close to the total deductions from his gross pay.
In both, however, there is the potential cause of giving undue benefit or even inducing corruption.
In the first, the grateful mayor returns the favor, be it the awarding of a contract, the opening or closing of traffic on streets, or similar request from a generous friend in business and industry. The danger is that the mayor may favor the donor over the taxpayer.
(The purchase of questioned dump trucks is a classic case. How else do you explain the spirited defense of the mayor that the trucks bought by the City are brand-new when his own experts at City Hall say that many parts of the vehicles, including chassis, are “old or modified”?)
In the second, the police station or unit chief sacrifices other items in his home budget or scrapes from meager savings. If he has been making money on the side, the exaction prompts him to make even more money, illegally or unethically of course.
The smart commander passes it on to his cops, who in turn push their sources: the vendor of pirated tapes at the corner, the local video carrera operator, the drug lord, and others who depend on the police for survival.
There’s another difference.
City Hall officials get away with their kind of fundraising, with not even a threat of inquiry or investigation.
The cops have to face inquisitors to explain why they had to pitch in money to feed their guests.
‘Kay photographer lang’
As part of his explanation why he drove away from his office last Monday Sun.Star photographer Amper Campaña, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña told City Hall reporters, “You guys don’t do that (meaning Campaña’s alleged trespass). He’s just a photographer...”
Either the mayor is ignorant about the value of a photographer in producing newspapers or tv news shows or he is just a “mata pobre” who thinks a photographer has such a low rank in his society that people like Campaña are beneath any civility from a public official.
For the mayor’s information, Campaña earns more from Sun.Star than some City Hall officials from the City Government. Campaña, the last time we checked, is also the most multi-awarded community photo-journalist hereabouts.
But that is not the point. The point is that Campaña, whatever his rank, is a decent human being who did not deserve the mayor’s indecency.
The photographer, in the first place, committed no trespass. He was allowed to get inside the office by the mayor’s bodyguard. No stealth, no breaking and entering. He was covering the police official who made a courtesy call on the mayor (what irony, someone being given courtesy and not giving it).
Campaña did not deserve the verbal abuse from the mayor. He did not have to be shamed further by being removed under armed escort not only from the mayor’s office but out of City Hall as well. Campaña did not refuse to leave, why the further humiliation? Because Campaña was “photographer lang”?
As for the City Hall reporters, if they saw nothing wrong with the mayor’s action, they might actually be no better than the photographers the mayor demeans.
(May 8, 2003 issue)
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