MY GOOD friend Bobby Nalzaro asks in his widely popular column: Why did I re-file the bill to eliminate the height requirement in recruitments for officers of the Philippine National Police (PNP), Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP)?
I think the question should be: Why is there a height requirement in the first place?
In hearings before the Committee on Public Order and Security, which I chaired in the 15th Congress, not one expert presented any empirical study to show that height is a factor in determining the future fitness or competence of police, jail and fire officers. In fact, the most important skills that a police officer is required to have—investigation, detection, physical stamina, community relations—do not have anything to do with height.
Besides: (1) there still would be qualifying exams to determine mental fitness, and medical exams to determine physical fitness; and (2) eliminating the height requirement would not prohibit the PNP, BJMP and BFP from recruiting tall officers, only that they could no longer discriminate against shorter ones.
What is left, therefore, is the unsubstantiated fear that police officers who are not tall would, in the words of Mr. Nalzaro, be the “laughingstock” of the world, so that there should, in his view be certain “standards”. What is the basis for these “standards”? As pointed out earlier, not empirical or scientific data but bias and prejudice, plain and simple.
I do not believe that bias and prejudice should be the basis for public policy. The time to end this invidious discrimination—perpetuated purely on the strength of fears and biases—is now.