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Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Obenieta: In the dead of the night
By Myke U. Obenieta
So to speak
Only in dreams that we are truly free, reckoned Robin William’s character in the film, Dead Poets’ Society. Daydreams, in fact, are fine in fending off realities too bad to be true. But it’s a nightmare, and you’d be damned, when you’re dreaming on top of a time bomb.
Of crime in the city and the runaway monster called prohibited drugs, the keepers of law and order may as well be running against the clock. Tough luck, though it may seem romantic like the dreamy crusade of Don Quixote, stubborn in his struggle in tilting at windmills.
It’s no joke for policemen who always risk being a laughing stock as the community loses sleep when the snores at the police station become no less louder than the snigger of lawbreakers. Not amused, however, is Cebu City Councilor Augustus Pe Jr. who recently earned flak after he reportedly “inspected police stations at unholy hours and gave a mouthful to policemen he saw sleeping.”
Call him quixotic, but Pe avers there’s no way criticisms will get in the way of his crusade to “continue doing surprise visits on police stations and special units to keep policemen on their toes.” Hold his horses he will not, never mind the frown of one broadcaster who mockingly called him on air as “police superintendent.”
Told not to dip his fingers into police work and to stick to his task as a City legislator, Pe countered he felt “duty-bound to shake the lethargy off most of the City’s law enforcers.” He, after all, is the head of the council committee on dangerous drugs. “As long as there are drugs in the streets, I will not allow policemen to sleep on their job,” stressed Pe who sponsored an ordinance that rendered it possible for an alarm system to connect all stations to City Hall.
Because the City reportedly gives a P1,000-incentive to each cop —aside from the regular salary, guns, gasoline and vehicles— it’s a foregone conclusion that the officers ought to rise to the occasion. And not lay themselves down, despite the burden of their task, while using the police blotter as a pillow, true. (Then again, all policemen whom Pe caught dozing off in the stations were those who were on a 24-hour duty shift. Which means they are deemed “active” only after three days; they are officially on day off the day after their shift ends and are on reserve the next day.)
Going the extra mile, as Pe has shown beyond the four walls of the City Council, may be tortuous for our cops bedeviled by lack of manpower in the shadow of society’s burgeoning scums. Outnumbered, or so they’ve been wailing vis-à-vis their enemies.
Then again, despite the odds, our cops know they can’t risk continually losing the community’s trust. And that’s possible, especially if they can only fret and fail to hear Pe’s wake-up call.
That a cop’s job is tough is no contest. Hands down, going against the formidable forces of wrongdoers is no role for wimps. Neither is it for somnambulists. (yomyko@yahoo.com)
(September 27, 2005 issue)
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