By Crismar Patacsil
If I were not a professor, I would have been a soldier!
When I was young, I remember how my late father treated me as if I am in a military training camp: to wake up early, how to eat fast and how to defend myself. His proudest picture still hangs in my parent’s house…a picture of him in full police uniform. He was not a policeman, but he joined a short course military training and became a volunteer during his younger days. If he had his way, he could have insisted I go to PMA.
But I took a different path. I think my father too was disillusioned with the military especially during the martial law days when people got killed in their homes. One was his close friend who got rained with bullets in his home.
Nevertheless, when I was a college student at UP Baguio, though it was required, I enjoyed ROTC. Joining as an officer was out of my mind but whenever there is a special voluntary training, I always volunteered to join. I remember one time, the UP Vanguards (ROTC officers in UP Baguio) announced that we can join their night ops training as a sort of graduation event for finishing two semesters of MS (military science) courses, only three of us (me and my two best friends) showed up and one of the officers asked me why wouldn’t we just join the officer’s rank. We didn’t but most of the Vanguards became our close friends. Last December 9, 2011 while on my way home to Baguio City from The Bless our Cops (BOC) First National Convention held at Camp Crame, Quezon City, I got a chance to meet with one of them who happened to be on his way home also to Baguio from reporting to Camp Crame. We rode together in the same bus and found out he is now the deputy director in the Baguio City Police Office.
Which brings me to my experience during the The Bless our Cops (BOC)First National Convention held at Camp Crame, Quezon Citylast December 8 and 9, 2011. But before that…
UP is known for activism and the rallies in the streets always finds us antagonizing with policemen. As a UP student then, I remembered joining a rally where the military was suspected of abducting fellow students. As a UP professor, I was again saddened when a UP professor was killed while doing research and the suspect was the military.
I have joined and lectured in line with the Transform the PNP movement through the Purpose Driven Life here in Baguio City during the time the military is riddled with corruption issues… from the generals for enriching themselves and the low ranked policemen branded as “kutong” cops. The media continued to report police abuses (hazing and rape in the police stations), heads of police protecting drug lords and jueteng lords. I don’t see the Transform the PNP movement making any impact. Nevertheless, I continued to join the campaign. Last December, when my pastor invited me to join the BOC First National Convention at Camp Crame, I said okay I will attend. But at the back of my mind, I thought, “Would something good come out of this for the military?”
On the first day, I got to be introduced to the The CORPS Movement (Christian Officers Reform the Police Service) and my eyes are opened that there are indeed a “few” good men in the PNP. Though a few (now in the ranks of Police Superintendents), they gave me a glimmer of hope for change as I saw their dedication not only to the PNP but to God first. For the first time, I saw for myself a generation of officers who will make an impact, a genuine transformation in the PNP. Their stories of how God is working in their lives are worthy of front page in daily newspapers.
The more I was encouraged when I saw Christian PNP cadet and cadettes in the conference vowing to join the ranks who will make this change happen in their lives through God.
Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain. Unless the Lord (re)builds the PNP, their labor is in vain. I am praying with earnest that these officers rise up to the ranks and more like them will saturate the PNP. I believe God is at work in the PNP. The CORPS Movement is indeed moving through God. I have decided to move with God in what He will do in the PNP and military in any way I can help.I am excited to see what God will do with the Bless our Cops and Soldiers (BOCS) in Baguio, Benguet and Cordillera Region. I am excited with the prospect of helping disciple PMA cadets/cadettes (in God’s ways as foster parents) who will one day become leaders of the military and even in our country as most military are occupying political posts in our nation. FVR for one has become one of our presidents. In all times of our history, the military are the closest persons in contact with the president as his security aides and I think some as confidants and advisers. Imagine if all of them surrounding the president are Godly people, the president will always encounter God.
My vision for the military is to go back to the pre-martial law days where they are seen as heroes in the community. They SERVE and PROTECT the people. They enforce laws and people are not afraid of them. They run to them for help because you know they will serve and protect you. (Today, we run away from them because they will take advantage of you.) People do not fear them like monsters in uniform, but fear them like a person, who is tempted to sin, fears God. People will fear them if they think of doing something unlawful or evil with their fellow men. I want to see the military and the community working hand in hand together, interacting with each other. In the first place, lest we forget, they are people too.
This is a far cry from what they are seen today. BUT WITH GOD, NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!
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