EIGHT POLICE OFFICERS recently robbed civilians during a supposed drug raid. The search warrant turned out to be invalid. The raid itself was a ruse—a legal costume worn to justify theft. Cash disappeared. Jewelry vanished. Homes were ransacked not for evidence but for profit. The officers meant to enforce the law became its predators.
This was not an aberration. This was routine.
Ask any drug suspect, any poor family unlucky enough to host a police “operation,” and the story repeats with chilling sameness: cabinets emptied, envelopes pocketed, phones seized, gold taken. Even the drugs that should be inventoried, photographed, and presented in court are stolen—recycled back into the streets, resold by the very men sworn to eradicate them. The police have not merely been infiltrated by corruption; in many places, they have normalized theft as procedure. The thief now wears a badge.
‘A country’s justice system must adhere to the highest standards of fairness and transparency, as it serves as the bedrock of democracy, giving impetus to peace and progress for the nation and its people.’
And this persists despite higher salaries, hazard pay, allowances, and bonuses showered to keep the ranks loyal to whoever sits in Malacañang. Pay, we were told, would professionalize the force. Instead, authority became more expensive—and therefore more lucrative to abuse. The badge turned into a license to extort, to plant evidence, to fabricate cases, to steal with impunity. This is not individual moral failure. This is systemic rot.
Criminology has long warned us about this. Police corruption thrives where opportunity meets weak supervision and a culture of silence. The classic “rotten apple” theory—blaming a few bad cops—has long been discredited. What we have is a rotten barrel, sustained by rotten orchards. In the Philippine context, the problem is institutionalized across at least four fronts: education, recruitment, socialization, and political control.
First, police education has failed. Criminology programs churn out graduates who can recite theories but cannot distinguish right from wrong in practice. Ethics is treated as a minor subject, a box to tick, not a moral spine to build. Many officers genuinely do not know—or no longer care—where ethical conduct ends and criminal conduct begins. When abuse becomes routine, conscience atrophies.
Second, recruitment is corrupted at birth. Officially, there are exams, physical tests, psychological screening. In reality, the decisive qualification is still may backer ako. Palakasan trumps merit. Those who enter the service do so indebted to padrinos—politicians, senior officers, power brokers. From day one, loyalty is not to the Constitution but to the patron. The uniform is issued alongside an unspoken IOU.
Third, and most lethal, is police socialization. What young officers learn on the ground is not integrity but survival. They are inducted into the bata-bata system, the politics of favoritism and fear. Do the right thing, and you are isolated. Question a superior, and you are banished—itatapon ka sa kangkungan. Promotions are not earned; they are performed through obedience, flattery, and silence. Those who cannot stomach corruption either leave, are sidelined, or are broken. Those who remain are often the most adaptable—and the most corrupt.
Criminological studies on police deviance describe this as noble cause corruption sliding into outright criminality. Officers begin by justifying small violations “for the greater good,” then graduate to theft, extortion, and violence once the moral line has already been crossed. In the Philippines, this is amplified by weak internal affairs, politicized discipline, and a justice system that rarely convicts uniformed offenders. Impunity becomes the real training manual.
The result is an organization that, by default, behaves like a crime syndicate. The PNP is one big criminal organization. Not by design, perhaps—but by tolerated practice. This must be said carefully: many police officers remain honest, idealistic, and committed to service. They exist. They endure. But they are often silent and powerless, buried under layers of command that reward complicity and punish conscience.
Corruption, like culture, reproduces itself. Each generation of police inherits the habits of the last, adapting them to the political weather. Under Marcos Sr., the police were the blunt instruments of authoritarian plunder. Under Duterte, they became executioners in a drug war that paid in blood and promised protection from prosecution. Kill counts replaced arrests; body bags replaced case folders. Today, stripped of that spectacle, many simply return to predation—shaking down the poor, terrorizing communities, stealing in daylight.
This is not merely a policing problem. It is a governance failure.
What must be done is neither mysterious nor novel. Officers who engage in deviance must be disciplined swiftly and publicly. Corrupt politicians must be barred from meddling in police affairs. The police must be insulated from partisan control, funded nationally, and governed by transparent, merit-based systems. Recruitment must be purged of backers. Promotions must be earned, not performed.
Education and training must be overhauled. Ethics cannot be ceremonial; it must be continuous. Annual ethics training should be mandatory for all ranks, tied to promotion and retention. Whistleblowers must be protected, not punished. Internal accountability must be real, not decorative.
Until then, the Filipino people will continue to fear those meant to protect them. And the police—once imagined as guardians of order—will remain what too many have already become: thieves in uniform, armed with authority, sheltered by silence, and unleashed on the powerless.