Cardinal tells police need to respect Human Rights
May 17, 2006
Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales of Manila told Metro Manila police at a spirituality seminar that they are "one with civilians" in promoting respect for human rights and for the country.
(UCA News, May 08, 2006) Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales of Manila told Metro Manila police at a spirituality seminar that they are "one with civilians" in promoting respect for human rights and for the country.
Commissioned officers were among the 100 Philippine National Police (PNP) personnel of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) who attended the April 27 seminar. It was titled "Kaganapan ng Buhay, Kaganapan ng Bayan (fullness of life, fullness of nation)."
Another 100 participants comprised mainly civilian staff of the NCRPO and laypeople who have had contact with police through involvement with Manila archdiocese's San Lorenzo Ruiz Lay Formation Center (LAYFORCE). The center conducted the seminar at St. Joseph Chapel, inside the National Police headquarters compound in Camp Crame, just north of the capital.
The liturgy, prepared by the PNP chaplaincy, included prayers led by a Protestant pastor, a Catholic priest and an imam, a Muslim prayer leader.
Police, Cardinal Rosales said, tread a "thin line between military service and citizen involvement," Cardinal Rosales told the audience, which included religious ministers of the chaplaincy office, all in their police uniform.
In his keynote address, which formed the main portion of the half-day seminar, the Manila archbishop stressed the importance of achieving "fullness of life" as a person in order to achieve development and progress for the country. He spoke of six "slaveries" that hindered the human person from achieving this goal, namely, "ignorance, poverty, sickness, selfish attitudes, unjust attitudes and sin."
He went on to say that the Church wants to restore the country's dignity by restoring the dignity of the Filipino people, including its law enforcers.
"The police are there to ensure not just peace and security, but also respect for the people and social welfare," he said. A policeman's response to a situation should differ from that of a soldier, he added, in that the police response should be more sensitive to the requirements of a specific situation.
The police force is "obligated, more than ever, to have respect for human rights," Cardinal Rosales emphasized. The Philippine Commission on Human Rights has accused the PNP of being the "worst abuser of human rights" in the country, an accusation that was quoted by the U.S. State Department in its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which was released March 9, 2006. According to Gains Marie Rosario, assistant minister of LAYFORCE, her group's partnership with the PNP started in 2005, when LAYFORCE approached the PNP's Chaplaincy Service Unit with a proposal to conduct spiritual enhancement seminars for PNP members.
"They aligned our idea with their pre-existing programs for moral and spiritual enhancement seminars, which are required by the government," Rosario explained, citing Presidential Decree 62. That decree institutionalized moral development programs for all government and non-government sectors. "That became our entry point," she told UCA News at the seminar.
With the theme "Paglalakbay ng Puso" (journey of the heart), LAYFORCE ministers would come every last Thursday of the month to the PNP headquarters to give spiritual formation to both uniformed and non-uniformed personnel. LAYFORCE also has been able to take part in rehabilitation retreats for delinquent police officers, which began in 2004. The program is called TABA, which literally means "fat" in Filipino but is used as an acronym made from the words "lazy, abusive, rude, lawbreaking" in reference to some police.
Rosario shared these activities helped her understand policemen as human beings. "Their concerns are pretty much the same as any normal person. They are concerned about poverty, the need for providing education for their children, loving their wives," she said.
Pastor Paul Canon, a PNP Protestant chaplain and one of the prayer leaders at the beginning of the seminar, told UCA News that LAYFORCE programs have been "going very well" for PNP personnel. He even commented that some policemen complained that one day of formation a month is insufficient.
"A lot were moved by the sharing of experiences," he said, adding that "they appreciated it very much and realized a lot about themselves and one another," including their potential to be "role models."
The pastor said the PNP chaplaincy would continue its partnership with LAYFORCE, hoping to reach all 6,000 officers and more than 100,000 regular police in the National Police.
The April 27 seminar was the 14th seminar organized by LAYFORCE for the PNP, but the first for its unit in Metro Manila. Earlier seminars were conducted for police in northern Philippine provinces.
Cardinal tells police need to respect Human Rights