A Visit to the Police Station

A Sworn Duty

When I visited the Police Office in San Enrique to get my police clearance, I was amused by the fact that the Police Officer’s Creed actually includes this:

“I believe in the sanctity of marriage and the respect for the rights of women.”

In this country, police officers have a reputation for womanizing and polygamy, which isn’t fair for those loyal to their wives and delightfully affirming for the chauvinist pigs. Maybe we can check some helpful statistics, say the incidence and prevalence of infidelity and spousal abuse among police officers in the Philippines in the last ten years and see what’s the real score in this matter (score being an operatively quantitative word.)

Plus, was the abovementioned line added to the Police Officer’s Creed in light of the rising notoriety of policemen where disrespect for marriage and women’s rights is concerned? If it was, is it honored by those duly bound by a sworn duty in words, thoughts, and deeds? And what do drivers have to say to this, when they are known nationwide to be such sweet lovers?

I’m just curious to know.

Paste and Furious

After half-an hour of working on my clearance, the police officer who processed it told me to paste my photo on the paper’s upper right-hand box, indicating the tub of paste at the edge of the table. I opened the lid of the tub and was surprised to find it practically empty, save for dregs of dry paste at the bottom. They reminded me of dried week-old booger. I did what I could; wet the pads of my thumb and index fingers with my tongue, placed a scraped bit of the dry paste between them and kneaded it for a moment, then spread it on the back the photo for posting. Wow, I got perfect adhesion!

I presented the clearance (now showing my picture) to the officer, waiting for whatever he still needs to do with it, stamp it with something, sign it, whatever. He only said, “You can now take it home.”

You made me go through all that trouble with the booger paste to tell me I can take it home where I have not less than 3 bottles of Elmer’s Glue?

As I went out of the police office, into the municipal office’s courtyard, I could only think: The Municipality of San Enrique can afford to choke almost all of the trees and shrubs in the public plaza with Christmas lights, but it can’t buy its police office a decent tub of paste? Life here in San Enrique is full of surprises that aren’t pleasant surprises.