PNP's Zero Criminality Drive

Strictly pleasant stories during meals should be a golden rule in every household.

And the story that is now causing my hyperacidity...

My wife told me over breakfast how a co-worker, Faye (not her real name), was able to bring to the police a pickpocket who stole Faye's cellphone.

What's upsetting with a success story about good winning versus evil? Upsetting is the failed story of how good winning almost versus evil.

Waiting for a train in a crowded MRT station, there was this woman pressing herself against Faye, her position blocking Faye from boarding the trains. Same woman wouldn't move even after several trains have already passed. When she finally did, Faye discovered her bag open & her iPhone already stolen.

Faye frantically went about the MRT station searching for the woman.

And she found her!

The woman resisted and escaped but not before Faye was able to catch-up on the woman's accomplice. Faye grabbed the accomplice and recovered from him the stolen iPhone and succeeded in bringing the scumbag to the nearest police station.

Sounded quick and easy? Almost.

That's until Faye had to transfer from one police station to another. Why? Because the police had only the same thing to tell Faye each time.

The cops would keep lecturing Faye how much trouble it would be to file charges. The expenses... the hearings... That a pickpocket only has to post a P6,000 bail (an iPhone is over 40k) & be free again--free for him and his cohorts to do anything to Faye too. And take note of this outrageous piece of information the cops were insisting on her: that should she press charges, PNP would have to confiscate her iPhone because it's evidence!

Came the last police station.

Emboldened by the authorities' apathy, the crook has by now been speaking over the phone to his fellow gang members; he was ready to turn the tables. He was now demanding that Faye drop all charges or he can't assure her what he and his gang might later do to her. He was telling Faye that they settle the matter outside the police station--the gangsters want to bring Faye to their lair in Plaza Miranda where they could all arrive at a settlement! To this, all that the blotter officer had to say to the pickpocket was: "Ilang beses ka nang dinala dito. Kayo nang bahala mag-ayos n'yan." (You've been brought here several times. You thresh this out between you.)

Whoa!

In the end, Faye quits if only just to finally go home at 2:00 in the morning-- still with her cellphone and her harrowing tale that is the kind of story that one has survived if only to warn others.

And that's how PNP can say that it's been successful in reducing "reported" crimes.