Fil-Am cops’ group continue to support PNP

A group of Filipino-American police officers has decided to continue helping their counterparts in the Philippines even after the San Franciso Police District (SFPD) cut ties with the Philippine National Police (PNP) due to concerns of human rights violations.
Retired SFPD Lieutenant Eric Quema, second vice president of THE Filipino-American Law Enforcement Officers (FALEO), said they cannot turn their back on Filipino policemen.
Some 20 FALEO members are now in the country to turnover $25,000 to $30,000 worth of used and brand new police equipment to different police stations in the country. They also gave donations to different barangays and schools.
“We are not officially here under San Francisco PD anymore and neither is any agency, they discontinued that (exhange program) immediately and I don’t blame my chief, that’s the only move he can make because politically, everybody is in turmoil so he made the only choice he could make,” Quema told reporters after the turn-over ceremony at the PNP national headquarters in Camp Crame.
“And because he made that choice, we choose to go under the umbrella of FALEO kasi fraternal 'yan. We are still on good stuff, this is good stuff, this is not bad. We can’t abandon our own people because once this is all settled, all these accusations, the fact remains the crimes are gonna continue and we can’t abandon them and start over again. We want to continue the bridge we have," he said.
Quema said the controversy did not affect FALEO even though they were told they can no longer officially represent the SFPD and its agencies.
“The controversy in the political arena about the extrajudicial killings, that did not affect FALEO. They just told us we can no longer officially represent San Francisco police and all our agencies, kasi halo-halo kami dito sa team, but now we can no longer represent officially, but we can represent as a fraternal organization of law enforcement,” he said.
“FALEO is always intended and committed to continue to help our brothers and sisters in PNP kasi alam mo naman mahirap ang trabaho, fighting crime, murder, robbery, rape, and all those things don’t stop, they keep going,” he said.
Quema said FALEO is trying to stay out of the controversy.
"We never wanted to pull out [of our ties with PNP], we leave that out to politicians and those that are afraid about extrajudicial killings. If in fact that is occurring, I have no doubt there are mechanisms in place to investigate that,” he said.
He said the equipment they donated are basic equipment that could help Filipino to protect themselves.
“Murder, robbery, rape, fraud, all those things still occur and the policemen and policewomen need these basic police equipment to protect themselves and do their jobs properly. ‘Yung sinasabi nila sa extrajudicial killing is not related to these basic body armor, helmets,” he said.
He said they know at least two incidents where the bullet-proof vests they gave saved the lives of police officers.
“Some of these vests are used, some of them are new but all the PNP has is skin and bones. So if the bullets come into you and you have skin and bones, your chances of survival are greatly diminished. With the vest you have a fighting chance to surviving and going home to your families,” he said.
“Some of those helmets are [worth] $300. Sayang if we are not using it, why not give it to someone whose head it’s gonna protect because there are a lot of bad people in our world. In a perfect world you would not need a police but our world is far from perfect,” he added.
Asked  if FALEO will make efforts to convince SFPD to continue the program with PNP, Quema believed now is not the time for it.
“I think the political climate now is not conducive to asking our police officials to once again support this program. And then again they’ve never been to this program,” he said.
He said he wanted their officials to understand first where they are coming from.
“So I’m trying to get them to come here before I can persuade them to once again institute the program. ‘Di ba seek first to understand before being understood. I want to understand where they are coming from and make them understand where we are coming from,” he said.
FALEO is also selling commemorative coins to raise funds for the PNP's elite Special Action Force. —ALG, GMA News

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