CLEAR MANDATE

SHE MAY be making political mistakes left and right, as she herself has
admitted, but President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is at least finding her
bearings in the one area that has a more immediate impact on the citizenry.
No, we are not talking about economics. We are talking about her get-tough
call on criminality and the timely marching order she gave to the new
leadership of the Philippine National Police (PNP) us on the two
significant areas where public order and safety have lately taken a
beating: kidnapping and drug trafficking.

Evincing a new urgency, the President directed new PNP director general
Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. to go after kidnappers and eliminate kidnapping "in
one year." The order does not sound like a mere rhetorical flourish because
Ms Macapagal, ever the technocrat, set targets and yardsticks for the
campaign. She promised to look at "baseline figures" to determine the
number of kidnap syndicates. Against these figures, she will track the
success of the campaign.

Obviously heartened by what she considers to be a successful campaign
against the Abu Sayyaf, she wants nothing less than a repeat in the
kidnapping front. She said she regularly monitored the military campaign
against the extremists and will do the same for the anti-kidnapping
campaign. What all this means is that the President will be breathing down
Ebdane's neck so the police can show some results in the rather stagnant
offensive against kidnappers.

The poor performance of the police in this drive explains her decision to
scrap the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force. Ebdane has made lame calls
to have the task force retained, but he obviously has no feel for the
public pulse. Attuned to the theater of politics, which is a play of
symbolism, the President rightly knows that a new initiative is needed. The
essence of that initiative may be unclear, but she knows it must at least
have a new face.

The new face is the special task force headed by Davao City mayor Rodrigo
Duterte that will help Ebdane and the PNP. Duterte brings to his new
assignment the record of his own success at ridding Davao of vice and
crime. The rub here is that for all his reported achievements in fighting
crime, Duterte may not provide the human face to the national campaign.
Human rights groups have deplored his iron-fisted efforts that generally
approximate the police's unwritten rule of engagement: Shoot first, ask
questions later.

His supporters, of course, have argued that Duterte has acquired grace and
some rudimentary knowledge of human rights while serving as mayor and
during a brief stint in Congress, and has come to appreciate the protocols
of democracy that uphold individual rights and shun overkill. For the sake
of the anti-crime crusade, let us hope they are right. It will be a sign of
the utter failure of all the efforts against the crime menace when the face
of the transgressor melds with that of the law enforcer. In some instances,
that has already happened, but the public must hope against hope.

Confused Mandate

SOME law enforcers confuse their mission with that of lawbreakers. Former
PNP director general Leandro Mendoza confuses his old job with his new
stint as secretary of the Department of Transportation and Communication
(DOTC). In his first week on the job, he vowed to solve the traffic problem
and check smuggling. He claimed those were the mission orders he had
received from the President.

Perhaps he should receive a pat in the back for obedience. But surely the
President knows the DOTC secretary has other things to do than unclog
traffic and bust smugglers. The principal duty of the DOTC secretary is to
plan and implement policies and programs to improve public transport and
mobility and to enhance telecommunications.

Mendoza therefore may be guilty of selective memory. He only wants those
aspects of the DOTC secretary's job that appeal to his cop's sensibility.
He may also be guilty of nostalgia, which is quite incomprehensible.
Considering the PNP's poor record in crime-busting, and even traffic
management, there is no reason for him to pine for the old slapdash days.

But there's the future waiting for him. If he's bright enough, he will know
that the job of the DOTC chief is different from that of the police chief.
If he fails to realize that, the public will have to face more than traffic
jams and smuggling.