Still it took six years and several changes in its leadership before the Philippine National Police (PNP) followed the example of the commander in chief. Finally, last Saturday, director general Jesus Versoza ordered all PNP regional and provincial commanders to stop the practice of parading suspects in front of the media and the public. It was the first instruction Versoza gave to his subordinates after he assumed the highest PNP post, perhaps indicating the high priority he was giving to the protection of human rights.

While the practice persisted, mere suspects were practically pronounced guilty by the police without the benefit of a trial. This was a violation of their basic human and constitutional right to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise. And time and again, as in the Ramirez case, suspects who had been put on public display like trophies in the war against crime turned out to have been wrongly accused.

In July this year, Commission on Human Rights chair Leila de Lima deplored the practice and cited it as one of the reasons that made the PNP the country’s No. 1 violator of human rights. Then PNP director general Avelino Razon later announced that the police would try out the policy of banning such presentations to make the PNP “more human rights compliant.” But it was left to Versoza to issue the order to end the practice.

That was a good start for the new police chief who took over from Razon only last Saturday. But he has a very long way to go and a lot more to do before the public can regain its trust in the PNP and give it the kind of cooperation it needs to combat criminality effectively. As De Lima pointed out, Filipinos cannot easily forget police abuses during martial law as well as more recent incidents, like the suspected rubout of Kuratong Baleleng gang members, the rubout on Ortigas Avenue that was recorded on videotape, and the killing of three suspects in last May’s bloody bank robbery in Laguna province.

While the police act as accuser and judge when they parade suspects, in such killings, they appear to act as accuser, judge and executioner.

This policy of shooting first and asking questions later seems to be very much in play to this day. In fact, hardly a week passes when the police are not involved in “shootouts” that almost always end up with holdup men and sundry criminals being killed.

True, criminals are becoming bolder and come better armed, and policemen have been killed in some cases. But the rising frequency of one-sided gun battles is becoming suspicious.