“Ah PCR? Madali lang yan. Pakain lang ‘yan tapos mamigay ka ng tsinelas tapos picture picture” [Ah PCR? That is easy. It’s just about feeding and giving slippers and taking pictures].
If you are a police officer in the Philippines, you might have heard about how police-community relation is described as child’s play. All you have to do is get a good picture portraying policemen doing good deeds and post it online. This job, as they say, is dispensable. Frankly speaking, it is indeed useless, nonsense, and a waste of time; it is a waste of time for those who do not truly understand the concept of policing. The sad truth is that some police officers are victims of their own misconceptions. Some do not realize that it is a basic competence every PNP member should have. To rectify a such mistake, we should answer the following questions regarding what I call the “revolutionary policing tool”:
- What is PCAD and its dimensions?
- How is it similar to the Civil-Military Operations of the AFP?
- How does PCAD support the performance of other police functions?
What is PCAD and its dimensions?
Under PNP MC No. 2019-046, the face of Police Community Relations was transformed into Police Community Affairs and Development (PCAD) embedded in the TAGATAGUYOD Master Plan. It is a more coherent, flexible, and strategic three-dimensional tool that allows police to address not only the issues in its information operations but also to inform, engage, influence, and lead the community to foster cooperation and cater to the needs of sustainable and long-lasting development both in local and national levels. In a nutshell, PCAD empowers both the police as a community and service-oriented agency and the community as stakeholders skyrocketing their own progress. The PCAD has three dimensions namely, (a) Information Development Operation; (b) Public Information; and (c) Community Affairs and Development. The IDO, PI, and CAD are the three elements intertwined to form the PCAD similar to the Civil-Military Operation (CMO) of the AFP which is composed of Psychological Operations, Civil Affairs, and Public Affairs.
How is it similar to Civil-Military Operations of the AFP?
Civil-Military Operations are planned activities with the end goal of supporting the accomplishment of Army missions (Armed Forces of the Philippines, 2020). It works by shaping the human aspect of the battlefield to gain popular support from the people within the community. Similarly, PCAD activities allow the police to magnify its efforts in enforcing the law, preventing and controlling crimes, maintaining peace and order, and ensuring public safety and internal security by harnessing the active support of the community.
Like Psychological Operations (formerly called as Info Support Affairs or ISA), the IDO is about developing and applying non-lethal means to influence the decisions and perception of a certain target audience (TA) like the local executives, for example. It entails shaping the minds of TA to transform neutral or passive attitudes, reinforce favorable behaviors, and redirect the unfavorable ones to become favorable to the police. With the favor of the majority tilting towards the PNP instead of having leaders of the community being critical to law enforcers, establishing cooperation is way much easier.
Public Information, just like Public Affairs, provides timely, validated, and accurate pieces of information to the public so that they would not be victimized by the spread of wrong information and the adversaries’ propaganda. Released information is intended to empower the public, promote awareness and create a sense of inclusivity in social issues and government actions. It is also aimed to encourage the general citizenry to participate in an information dissemination chain that reduces fear and helps in crime prevention and solution.
While Civil Affairs is defined as “a CMO pillar focused on building and strengthening relationships, partnerships, collaboration, and cooperation within the civilian government and non-government institutions to support… accomplishment of the mission,” the Community and Affairs Development in its deep sense focuses on creating and strengthening community cooperation, collaboration, and trust in order to gain leverage in fighting crimes and insurgency. CAD also takes pride in institutionalizing partnerships among and between the PNP and community members to craft solutions to prevailing problems and promote peace and sustainable development.
How does PCAD support the performance of other police functions?
“Police do not prevent crime” (Bayley, 1994, p.3). Indeed, the PNP cannot prevent a natural phenomenon. Police cannot control the independent factors contributing to crimes such as demographics and geo-political situations. Moreover, the police neither have the power to increase budget allocation nor raise the personnel quota beyond what is supported by financial provisions to bring its policing power to a higher notch. However, the PNP can work on the minds and hearts of the people and find partners to achieve its goals. Being defined as the “heart and soul of policing”, PCR in the form of PCAD supports the other components of the PNP Quad by building trust with and instigating contributions from the community.
Intelligence officers, for an instance, cannot monitor all entrances and exits in a municipality and spot the presence of criminal groups entering their AOR. What they do is establish contact and good relationship with Barangay Intelligence Network (BIN) members who are natives of the place and can identify new unfamiliar personalities or pinpoint locations of clandestine laboratories. In the same manner, investigators ask the aid of barangay officials to solicit the support of other barangay residents in identifying the suspects in a murder case. Mobile forces conducting anti-insurgency operations could employ strategies in IDO to gain the support of the community in identifying mass bases, party members, and cadres cohabiting with their supporters. Understanding the dimensions of PCAD and its relation to CMO would also increase interoperability between the PNP and the AFP units within the area, maximizing the efforts against the opposing forces.
On crime and insurgency prevention and suppression, PCAD serves as the foundation that orchestrates all efforts. To illustrate, in a far-flung and depressed area so isolated that the government’s basic services cannot be delivered easily, social issues are easily used to advance the CTGs agenda. People are being easily persuaded to join the armed revolution under the pretense that Malawakang Rebolusyong Bayan is the only heed to the call of the “oppressed”. This will result in the rise of recruitment from the labor, agricultural, and youth sectors. However, launching an all-out counter to the adversary by arousing, organizing, and mobilizing stakeholders to join hands in finding ways to provide for the community’s basic needs, as well as informing the general public of such efforts, would make the people feel that their needs are being taken care of. As a result, they would trust the government more and so the law enforcement. Recruitment and other forms of crimes would likely decline because problems are treated at the grass-root level.
The understanding of the importance of forging partnerships with the people who the PNP ought to serve elucidates the very reason for the existence of PCAD. Likewise, being familiar with the basic concepts of PCAD will optimize the police capabilities in performing official duties.
by: John Mark J Maandal
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About the Author:
John Mark J Maandal is an emerging researcher in the field of policing and public safety. He is one of the authors of PNPA’s winning entry to the 2021 Porsimaptar International Conference on Policing (Scientific Paper Writing Category) and of the same institution’s first research paper which qualified for publication in the journal of abstracts of DOST National Academy of Science and Technology during the 2022 Annual Scientific Meeting. Currently, he is a student in Civil-Military Operations Course at the CMO Regiment, Philippine Army in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City.
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Disclaimer
The views expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the position of the Philippine National Police, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or the Philippine Government.
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