Res Gestae
What makes a traffic "foolice"
I put it clear that many of our traffic police are faithful to the noble mandates of their profession. In fact, I am particularly impressed with the so many traffic police who are seemingly unmindful of the scorching heat of the sun as they perform their job in our streets. Those traffic police, who dance their day away at the crossroads, terminals and in highly populated or congested areas, give us the confidence to hope for their race. Dedicated and dignified traffic police are not going the way of dinosaurs. Only a handful of them are scalawags. Only few of them have calloused conscience. And still few of them are "buwaya"! Thus, the title of this article is coined to refer only to the dregs and the misfits of the traffic police force.
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Corruption among traffic police is not peculiar in Iloilo City. Okey, as you want it, in the Philippines. It is also rampant in other parts of the globe. And, yes, corruption among the traffic police is even worse in some countries, like Russia, Nepal, and most parts of Africa. When I checked the internet to get some materials for this article, thousands of reports on traffic corruptions found therein made me aware that the problem is really widespread and even institutionalized in some cities, especially in the so-called third world countries. This gives us the general picture of the root cause of corruption - poverty!
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Interestingly, however, my reading of the reports on traffic police corruption revealed, aside from poverty, other common reasons or causes of this problem. I have learned through my online research that erosion, degeneration of professionalism, ethics and integrity of the traffic police is commonly linked to:
1. Lack of work plans and schedules for the traffic enforcement officers whereby they are positioned without an objective or purpose, except the sole aim of extorting bribes.
2. Lack of supervision of officers. There are insufficient inspectors or supervisors such that only the low-ranking personnel are in charge of some traffic police bases.
3. Inadequate working tools, equipment, supplies, transport and housing.
4. Absence of policy guidelines on the duration of deployment of traffic police officers to a particular station or traffic checkpoint. This is why there are certain stations where traffic police prefer to work in because the stations are deemed to be financially lucrative.
5. Soliciting lifts from road users. This greatly compromised the integrity of officers by causing disillusionment and loss of impartiality.
6. Negative work attitudes, apathy and disillusionment among the officers to the effect that "everybody is engaged in corruption practices and our salaries are low and terms of service are poor".
7. Road users' ignorance of various fines on traffic offenses. Consequently, they are easily intimidated by traffic police officers into giving bribes.
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Because of these causes, traffic police has become number one symbol of corruption. The only way to solve the problem is to do what the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and Ukraine did, that is, scrap the entire police force?!?
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