Collaborative Inquiry as a Critical Systemic ...

Collaborative Inquiry as a Critical Systemic Approach to Improving Ethics and Governance in the Philippine National Police Glenn Varona

Systemic Practice and Action Research ISSN 1094-429X Volume 25 Number 3 Syst Pract Action Res (2012) 25:209-222 DOI 10.1007/s11213-011-9218-4

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Author's personal copy Syst Pract Action Res (2012) 25:209–222 DOI 10.1007/s11213-011-9218-4 ORIGINAL PAPER

Collaborative Inquiry as a Critical Systemic Approach to Improving Ethics and Governance in the Philippine National Police Glenn Varona

Published online: 12 November 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Abstract Improving ethics and governance in policing is often considered an institutional function that police agencies do as ‘expert’ institutions. Participation by other stakeholders may be welcome so long as police are able to control the processes and mechanisms of participation. This paper, based on research done with the Philippine National Police, argues that collaborative inquiry could be an effective critical systemic approach to participation by the wider society in police reform. This could enable both police and non-police stakeholders to work together towards mutual understanding and cooperation as equals towards better policing. This participatory approach is not meant to replace the institutional mechanisms that the police use for their own reform effort, but it is supposed to complement them. The research on which this paper is based was an attempt to design a model for collaborative inquiry at the local municipal level of policing in the Philippines, since the municipality is the lowest operational level for the Philippines’ police service. The results of that study suggest that it is possible to establish such a mechanism and make it work, in effect establishing a Close Knit Knowledge Organisation at the lowest level of operational policing. Keywords Ethics and governance in policing Critical systems Collaborative inquiry Philippine National Police

Introduction: Policing and Its Ethical Considerations The public police in any society is a formidable and powerful public institution (Newburn 2003, p. 1). The coercive nature of police power and the discretion to use it are what distinguish the police from any other agency of government or social public entity (Settle 1990, p. 10). Where there is power, there is need for ethics and ethical considerations. Police are given powers and rights that are denied to ordinary citizens. Police are also allowed to violate the privacy of suspects and persons under investigation in ways not G. Varona (&) Torrens Resilience Institute, 220 Victoria Square, Adelaide, SA, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

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normally allowed. These form part of the social role and organisational culture of policing (Miller et al. 2006, p. 11). Furthermore, these powers come with authority and a significant degree of discretion, which means they could be exercised without close supervision (Kleinig 2005, p. 597). Police are burdened with demands that are not normally made on the common citizenry (Miller et al. 1997, p. 11), which makes it imperative for ethics to govern policing. It could be argued that the nature of policing in a particular society is a strong indicator of how that society’s government works. Cohen and Feldberg (1991, p. 24 cited in Neyroud and Beckley 2001, p. 20) state that, ‘the moral basis of police work can be found in the moral basis of government itself.’ Such is the importance of policing and the ethics that ought to accompany it, that the Council of Europe published in September 2001 the European Code of Police Ethics (Neyroud 2003, p. 578). That the Council of Europe had used its authority to introduce a universal ethical code for all European police agencies and institutions underscores the critical importance of ethics in policing. This is reason enough to justify this particular research effort in this field. This paper is a summary of the findings of a study conducted in the Philippines by this writer from 2009 to 2010. It is perhaps the first attempt at research into police ethics and governance in the Philippines, given that there is little written about the Philippines and its policing in the academic literature. Research into police ethics in general is a relatively new field in policing studies, even though there has been a steady increase in such research efforts since the 1990s (Kleinig 1996, p. 23; Newburn 1999, p. 2; Neyroud and Beckley 2001 cited in Neyroud 2003, p. 578). As far as the Philippines and its police are concerned, however no studies on ethics and governance could be found in the literature, which is part of the reason why this writer has chosen this research area for study. Another reason, and this has particular bearing on this specific study, is that many developing nations, such as the Philippines, are presently working under police systems that go beyond what would be considered the norm in more developed democratic states. For example, the Philippines is presently under a policing institution that could trace its ultimate origins to colonial times. Police institutions derived from colonial models tend to be more centralised in structure and more militaristic in orientation. They also tend to have administrative tasks over and above their public order responsibilities (Mawby 2003, p. 21). Furthermore, many developing nations that have internal security problems usually employ their police as part of their security forces (Goldsmith 2000, p. 167), giving what should be civilian police institutions military powers, capabilities and functions. This would create challenging ethical problems that are not normally included in considerations of policing ethics in more stable developed nations. If corruption and the abuse of police power and discretion are pervasive and continuing problems (Newburn 1999, p. 1; Kleinig 2005, p. 596), then perhaps policing that has internal security dimensions would have even more corruption and abuse of power problems. They would, moreover constitute completely different elements than one would find in a more stable democracy. But ethical considerations in policing could be part of the much wider context of police governance, since the wider processes of governance include considerations of equity, justice and a concern for the future. These are ethical considerations (World Health Organisation 1986, cited in McIntyre-Mills 2008, p. 45). And with governance, it is important to look into the relationship between an institution such as the public police and the greater local, national and regional communities within which it works. Most often, police consider themselves as one side of an antagonistic relationship with the public they are supposed to serve (Foster 2003, p. 199). This need not necessarily be the case, and since present day society has become more complex than in the past, bringing with it more

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complex problems within increasingly diverse communities, it is critical to look at policing as a governance issue, since it is a relationship between a public institution and society which carries with it equity dimensions, and ethics management is well within that scope. This research argues that policing and its issues are part of society’s values, beliefs and world views. Police ethics and governance as well as the problem of corruption in policing are merely part of society’s attitudes towards what is ethical and what constitutes corruption (Kleinig 2005, p. 596). Thus, if unethical police conduct is a function of such a social attitude, improving police ethics, then, should have social dimensions. The communities in which police operate should have an active and meaningful role in the development of a more ethical police and of better governance of policing. Improving ethics and governance in policing, is arguably best carried out through a critical systemic process that enables wide public participation, particularly one that complements rather than opposes existing institutional efforts by the police to deal with its ethics and governance problems. This study has been carried out in the Philippines with a view towards developing a model based on such considerations. The Philippine National Police (PNP) has been the nation’s police service since the early 1990s. Because of its colonial origins and its involvement in both law enforcement and internal security, it is highly militarised. It is institutionally separate from society even as it is involved with social issues. It has a troubled human rights record and has significant problems involving unethical behaviour and corruption. The purpose of this research has been to design a model for improving ethics and governance in the PNP, and because a critical systems framework informs it, the model is based on collaborative inquiry. This involves members of the wider non-police community, working as equals with their local police in collaboration, as active participants in the improvement of policing. It is based on the idea that the PNP and the wider society could work together in collaboration and as equals towards police reform.

Research Methodology and Rationale Wenger et al. (2002, p. 19) propose a ‘Double Knit Knowledge Organisation’ as a way of linking the concept of the learning organisation with that of a community of practice. Figure 1 illustrates it. This figure describes the idea that learning organisations not only learn on their own, but with other organisations within communities. Perhaps this framework could also be applicable to institutions, and policing is both institutional as well as organisational in context. This presupposes that the organisation is developing within itself as well as in its interactions with others. Because ethics can be learned, internalised and made a habit (Singer 1994, p. 17), this organisation may be a means through which the PNP can learn and internalise ethics while learning with other organisations and institutions and the wider civic community. It has been the purpose of this research to design a community-based collaborative inquiry model based on the idea that through meaningful participation, both police and members of the community could work together towards improving ethics and governance in policing. This is part of competent citizenship, which premises the idea that people in society should understand that their rights and liberties have counterpart obligations (O’Neill 2002, p. 15). If these obligations are to be carried out, however, the average citizen should be equipped with the competence, especially civil competency, to do so. Otherwise, ordinary citizens would be incapable of making any meaningful change for the

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Fig. 1 Double Knit Knowledge Organisation (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder 2002, p. 19)

better, and professional institutions, such as the police, could easily deny collaborative participation because the ‘inexpert citizen’ is neither knowledgeable nor competent to work with professionals. This writer believes that this kind of thinking may have to change, and this change has to be embedded in the political and social culture of communities (Ulrich 2003, p. 4). The Double Knit Knowledge Organisation illustrated previously enables ordinary citizens, working with fellow stakeholders such as the police, to build communities of practice that would develop and facilitate knowledge and learning for everyone involved. Since the structure is cyclical and iterative, learning and knowledge development could continually grow for as long as there is a sustained interest. It is through this learning process that so called ‘inexpert citizens’ could develop the civil competencies that they would need to fulfil their civic obligations as part of active citizenship. Elkin (1985, p. 182) notes that active citizenship based on democratic citizen participation require civic competence. Such competence could be learned through iterative, collaborative participatory processes. In keeping with critical systems thinking, this is possibly one way of applying Ulrich’s (1987, p. 19) concept of the critical use of boundary judgements, in which ordinary citizens can be capable of understanding the merits of propositions, contesting such propositions, and knowing the consequences of resulting decisions. As an ethical perspective, it can expand the concept of Pragmatism, such that stakeholders involved in the deliberation of an issue and its decision making are able to think of themselves as being on the receiving end of such decisions before they actually decide (McIntyre-Mills 2008, pp. 90–91). This is also a possible application of Habermas’s (1984) idea of sharing ‘intersubjective’ perspectives through Communicative Action, which is the medium for learning and collaboration. The processes involved in carrying out this study were based on qualitative data analysis and followed some of the aspects of Grounded Theory. Each previous stage of the research informed, and in a sense determined to a degree, each subsequent stage, within an overall planned research structure. In order to scope out the research environment, the first stage of the study involved a small quantitative survey using a 16 item questionnaire sent to 100

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respondents randomly selected from the personnel of the Philippine National Police. A third of the questionnaires were sent to officers assigned to the National Headquarters of the institution in Metro Manila. Another third were sent to a regional/provincial police command in the central Philippines and the last questionnaires were sent to a small rural police unit in a municipality in the eastern Philippines. These questionnaires were sent out in order to draw on possible research themes that would be the basis of succeeding stages of the research process. The distribution of the survey was intended to determine very tentatively if there were any differences in the thematic responses of police officers assigned to the national level (which also includes police in a highly urbanised environment), at the regional and provincial levels, and finally at the municipal level. The last level is the lowest operational unit of the Philippine National Police, since the lowest level of command is the municipal police office. The Philippine National Police is a highly centralised national institution, and the administrative distance between the national headquarters level at one end to the municipal police office at the other is so wide, police officers’ views about ethics and governance may differ based on where they are assigned in the policing hierarchy. It was also interesting to determine if differences in police opinions are affected by whether officers are assigned to rural or urban jurisdictions. At any rate, 99 of the 100 questionnaires sent were returned. There were no invalidated questionnaires. Indeed, the respondents seem to have taken great care in answering the questions. This near perfect return made possible a fairly objective determination of the research themes. The initial themes taken from the initial survey informed the second stage of the research process, which was a series of semi-structured interviews among police and nonpolice stakeholders in the three areas where the questionnaires had been sent. More than 100 participants were interviewed from the Philippine National Police and among ordinary citizens, including those involved closely with police as members of civic action organisations or employees in the judicial services of government, as well as employees of parapolicing professions. The private security industry and informal community policing at the village (Barangay) level of the Philippine administrative structure, which is lower than the municipality, are examples of para-policing. The PNP has no command level for villages, which are under the political and administrative authority of municipalities and cities. Municipal and city police do perform policing in the villages, however for the most part village level policing is carried out by volunteer village watchmen, known as Barangay Tanods, who keep the peace and resolve small scale community problems and petty crime (Varona 2010). Most municipal and city police units do not have enough staff to ensure comprehensive police coverage. According to available accessible data, the police to population ratio for the Philippines is 1 police officer for 747 people in 2006. The PNP has always deemed the ideal ratio to be 1:500 (National Statistics Coordination Board 2007, p. 2). The reality is arguably much worse, and so regular professional policing has to be supplemented by volunteer village residents and even private security guards. The interviews were made in such as way as to ensure that all perspectives could be heard from as broad a range of participants as possible. A few respondents were foreign nationals who were involved in some way with training programs in the Philippine National Police. Police participants and respondents were officers across a range of ranks and several different subordinate agencies in the institution. The highest ranking respondents were Chief Superintendents (equivalent to a brigadier general in the military) and the lowest ranks were Police Officer 1s (PO 1), which is what a constable would be in the UK policing system. Among the non-police respondents, people from varied walks of life and those who have been deeply involved with the police in some form, such as members of civic organisations, lawyers, transport operators, government and local officials, a gaol

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inmate presently serving a sentence for armed robbery, and relatives of police officers were interviewed. The interview questions were open ended and based on the themes and initial data obtained from the initial questionnaire survey. They became more like open conversations, which brought out frank narrative data open to qualitative analysis. The results of this series of semi-structured interviews and the initial survey then became the basis for the last stage of the study, which involved a collaborative inquiry discussion in the rural municipality where the last set of questionnaires in the initial survey had been sent. The reason for this is that, being a small town with a small police force, it was relatively easy to organise group discussions involving the local police and interested local citizens. This discussion was intended to prove that such a process is possible at the lowest level of policing and subsequent research or policy processes could work on what had been started. It is through a collaborative inquiry arrangement that a Close Knit Knowledge Organisation, albeit an informal one, could be organised. Interview records were then transcribed and themes and data were subject to qualitative analysis. A summary of the findings are presented in this paper.

Improving Police Ethics and Governance in the Philippines: Challenges and Issues Institutional Approaches to Improving Policing The vast majority of police respondents to this study have said that the Philippine National Police has its own institutional mechanisms for police reform. Indeed, in 2005, the PNP inaugurated the Integrated Transformation Program (ITP) and established a high level subordinate agency within the institution to manage and implement it. This agency is known as the Philippine National Police-Program Management Office (PNP-PMO). Indeed, this is a major and recurring theme in this research. The police admit that they have problems with unethical behaviour, corruption, institutional shortcomings, and human rights violations among others. Their solution to these and other issues affecting their institution is a comprehensive, high level program that would, over a 10 year period (2005–2015), resolve these problems and develop a more ethical, more efficient, more effective and more reputable Philippine National Police. The ITP’s overall goal is to ‘transform the PNP into a more capable, effective and credible police force.’ It intends to do this through the resolution of what it calls the PNP’s ‘organisational dysfunctions’ and to improve the quality of police services; strengthen the PNP’s law enforcement capabilities (capability enhancement) and improve the welfare and benefits of PNP personnel and dependents (Program Management Office 2008, p. 5). The PNP leadership have constantly expressed confidence that the ITP will have the capacity to identify and correct all the perceived dysfunctions in the PNP’s systems, procedures and programs (Police Digest 2008, p. 3). As for the ethical behaviour of individual police officers, however, a major component of the approach based on the ITP seems to favour programs, many based on religious principles and methodology that seek to improve the morality of the typical police officer. This could be termed, a ‘virtue approach’ to improving ethics, which means that the PNP will attempt to teach and impart acceptable moral virtues, mostly in the form of religion based programs, into police officers and personnel in the hope of transforming them into more ethical persons. There are untested assumptions in Philippine society, drawn from interview narratives throughout this study, which indicate that:

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• Police officers, who are overwhelmingly male in the PNP, are very prone towards sexual immorality and marital infidelity, • Personal moral indiscretions, particularly of the sexual and marital kind (which is somehow connected with financial corruption) are directly related to professional unethical conduct, • Ethics is inseparable from morality, which is itself inseparable from personal spirituality (i.e. one’s personal relationship with God), and • Programs related to improving personal morality, particularly those with a religious character, should be provided to police officers since if the officer’s personal morality and spiritual fitness are dealt with, he or she will be more ethical. Nearly all the respondents in this study, both police and non-police, have spoken at length on this theme. When asked what they believed to be the most challenging ethics problem is in the PNP, both police and ordinary citizens interviewed have generally stated that it is the strong tendency among police officers towards immoral sexual behaviour and adultery. In recognition of this, the PNP and its Chaplain Service have been working on projects meant to help police officers deal with personal and moral issues. The virtue approach with religious dimensions is the PNP’s methodology for dealing with this. Indeed, a major police jurisdiction in Metro Manila has actually engaged the services of Evangelical Christian and Roman Catholic clerics to run personal moral training seminars and chaplaincy or counselling support for its officers (Laude 2009, p. 7). A Senior Police Officer 3 (SPO 3) running a major departmental desk at one of Metro Manila’s police commands mentioned in an interview that his unit sponsors weekly masses at a local Roman Catholic parish, which he and his fellow officers are expected to attend and actively support. He stated that this is all part of the PNP’s ‘moral enhancement program’ for its personnel. The Protestant Chaplaincy of the PNP has even organised non-police pastors and church leaders all over the Philippines to run seminars called ‘PNP-MOST’ (PNPMoral and Spiritual Transformation) seminars to help local police officers near these pastors’ churches to deal with personal morality and spirituality issues. The ITP itself has a spiritual and moral transformation component, in which a popular Christian self help book, Warren’s (2002) A Purpose Driven Life, has been rewritten for the PNP. It is now called, A Purpose Driven Pulis, and this is expected to become a major text for moral and spiritual values formation programs in the PNP. Each police command, unit and jurisdiction is expected to facilitate, if not conduct such programs and projects. The PNP recognises that personal morality crusades of this sort are not enough. The PNP-PMO has identified some of the main problems of the PNP and has begun working on 19 priority projects to date. It is a comprehensive list of some of the PNP’s logistical, human resource and capability problems, among them (Program Management Office 2008, pp. 1–4): • 80% of police stations (of a total of 1,282 police stations all over the Philippines), are in a ‘sorry state.’ This means that they are made of substandard materials, are not conducive to security and are ill equipped. Many stations have no computers, fax machines, office supplies or even rudimentary office equipment. • The PNP needs 14,524 land motor vehicles. 179 police stations do not even have any motor vehicles at all. • The PNP needs 51 aircraft (only 10 are on hand), 147 boats for maritime policing (only 36 are on hand), 25,289 hand held radios (the PNP has only 2,416) and 9,188 mobile radios (the PNP has only 326). • The average entry level police salary in the PNP is less than US$500.00 a month.

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• The PNP has only one full hospital for all 120,000 personnel and their dependents, supplemented by 16 clinics. Furthermore, only 7% of PNP dependents are able to receive educational assistance. • There are only 107 lawyers servicing the average police officer’s legal needs in the entire PNP. In the words of several PNP interviewees, officers are either afraid to do their duty, or are tempted to cut corners in the criminal justice system because of the fear of being sued. Legal assistance to officers is inadequate, and, as explained earlier, officers have to pay for their own legal representation. The ITP has identified 19 priority projects as a necessary part of the PNP’s transformation. A selection of these projects includes (Reformag 2009, pp. 13–15): • The Model Police Station Program: This is part of the effort to upgrade law enforcement capabilities, improve public access to police services and improve the quality of policing, among other things. The PNP (Program Management Office 2008, p. 3) has established three such model stations; Marikina City Police Office (in Metro Manila and Luzon), Aklan Provincial Police Office (in the Visayas) and Marawi City Police Office (Mindanao). Additional model stations are being developed at this writing. • ITP Public Information and Advocacy: This is part of the PNP’s strategy towards bringing in public participation and the involvement of as many sectors of Philippine society as possible in the work of policing. • PNP Livelihood: This is part of the PNP’s project towards providing police with added income and thus improve their lives and living standards. This is only one of several similar projects meant to help improve the lot of the average police officer. These are among the physical and tangible issues that the institutional mechanisms for reform seek to address. At present, the PNP still has many problems related to these issues. Because of poor remuneration and low wages, entry level police officers end up living in squalid, poverty ridden areas which are themselves seed beds of crime. Many respondents, after the initial discussion on morality and spirituality, would enter into this theme, saying that the low wages of a police officer would lead to corruption and unethical behaviour. On top of the issue of wages, the PNP also expects its police officers to purchase their own uniforms, equipment, training requirements, often even their own firearms and ammunition. Officially, the PNP issues these items to its personnel, but in practice, the average officer has to buy them, usually out of pocket. The issue of firearm issuance is interesting, in that the PNP issues weapons to officers on paper. However, there are not enough firearms in the PNP to supply the needs of all 120,000? personnel. In many cases, those who are issued weapons have been given faulty and defective arms. A number of police respondents to this study have complained either about the fact that they were not issued a firearm, or that the weapons issued to them were in a bad state of disrepair. In either case, they eventually had to buy their own guns to be able to do their work. There is clearly a disagreement between the official paradigm, which is what is officially presented by the institution, and the unofficial paradigm, which is what actually occurs in practice (Punch 2009, pp. 2–3). These issues could be related to the funding structure and arrangements in the Philippine Government and the PNP. According to an American national who works as a trainer in the PNP as part of a US Government assistance project, the national budget allocates funds for the PNP largely sufficient only to pay for police salaries and wages. Very little funding could be obtained from that allocation for development expenditures or even logistics

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and supply. The PNP-PMO recognises all this, and the PNP, through its ITP, seeks to deal with its problems as an institution. Corruption and the Wider Society What the ITP does not quite consider is the relationship between police corruption and the wider civic attitude towards it. The same American national who provided insights into the PNP’s funding issues was of the opinion that the wider Philippine society is generally very tolerant of bribery. This is reflected in several Transparency International (2007, 2008, 2009) reports on bribery and corruption. It is also an opinion that more than half the Filipino police respondents held. If this is true, then this public acquiescence and even encouragement of corruption would ultimately lead to corrupt public institutions, including the police (Kleinig 2005, p. 598). The argument that corruption is endemic and pervasive in the police (Newburn 1999, p. 1; Kleinig 2005, p. 596) simply implies that the pervasiveness of such corruption could also be found in the communities in which the police work. In the Philippines, much of this civic corruption is the result of colonial era political patronage structures and processes that still define political, economic, social and institutional relations in Philippine society (Constantino 1978, pp. 1290, 130, 137; Abueva 1988, p. 56; Goodno 1991, p. 34). This means, then, that the wider community should be involved in any effort towards eliminating corruption in policing because the only way to deal effectively with police corruption is to resolve the issue of social and civic corruption as well. The PNP’s ITP has an advocacy component which allows for public participation in the PNP’s transformation. The PNP also has its own doctrine on community policing, which it calls the Community Oriented Policing System (COPS) (Directorate for Police-Community Relations 2003, p. 11). Both these approaches do allow significant stakeholder participation in policing and police reform. However, such participation is still defined by the PNP and is under its control. The language of the ITP places the controlling hand of participation in the PNP, where, much like in community policing in general and the COPS program in particular, controlled participation has always tended towards unequal balances of power between ‘expert’ institutions (the PNP) and the ‘non-expert’ community. Cooperation and consultation become mere symbolic forms of interaction (Ryan 2008, p. 85). This may lead to a degree of cooperation from the public, especially if reform efforts are instrumental in helping improve police efficiency and effectiveness, and the ITP is not entirely without merit. The Model Police Station project alone has already been improving policing in the areas where they have been established. If police are seen as effective, the public may view their own cooperation with their police as important because it would be more likely to lead to tangible results (Sunshine and Tyler 2003, p. 153). But this kind of cooperation does not lead to the mutual enrichment and learning that collaboration and democratic participation could lead to. It is not fully participatory because the police control the dialogue, which means people in the wider society are not considered equally competent as the police, which is the ‘expert.’ This could mean, further, that the wider society might not come to realise fully its own contribution to corruption and thus focus only on the corruption of the police. This is, in part, a significant contributor to the development of a police culture that separates itself from the rest of society and develops an antagonism against it (Foster 2003, p. 199). The PNP and its ITP still consider public participation in policing and police reform part of its institutional approach. In any event, the PNP may recognise the need for society’s involvement in its reform efforts, but it does not look at this participation as a collaboration between itself and society. Through

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the ITP, it seeks to direct its own reform programs, and public participation within the ITP is under the PNP’s control.

Collaborative Inquiry as a Participatory Approach The last part of this research involved the organisation of a prototype collaborative inquiry process as previously explained and discussed. The purpose of this collaborative inquiry discussion is not to replace or supplant the ITP or any other police institutional approach to reform. Rather, it is meant to complement the top-down institutional approach with a bottom-up process from the lowest level of policing and where the wider public could actively participate. Figure 2 could be illustrated as follows. The PNP’s model for its own approaches at ethics management and governance could be defined as structured explanations of abstract and coherent, interconnected sets of statements about reality (Schwaninger and Grosser 2008, p. 448). Its major flaw is that it does not see beyond its own institution, it does not go beyond both the virtue approach and the ITP, and it does not truly involve citizen and community participation in its theoretical constructs. The argument being made here is that police reform should have a collaborative component that includes society’s other stakeholders as equals, thus enabling both police and non-police stakeholders to learn together how to be more ethical, and to steward the outcomes of that learning. Since the PNP is part of the public sphere, it is part of the domain in which multiple views and perspectives have to be presented, heard and acted upon (Habermas 1984; Guo and Sheffield 2007, pp. 618–619; Habermas 1987 as cited in Fishkin and Laslett 2003, p. 95). If the PNP truly listened to the community’s viewpoints and collaborated with this same community in the spirit of equality, so much so that it would not be afraid of the possibility of the community assuming leadership over policing and the police, then perhaps it would see the need for truly democratised and effective police reform. It would also allow society to understand its role in the growth and spread of police corruption and work with police for social and community ethical development. It becomes critical systems thinking when both police and community could place themselves respectively and together on the receiving end of their decisions. This should arguably be part of police governance in the Philippines. The bottom-up component of this model is in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity, which is the idea that decisions and responsibilities should be situated as low as possible in

Fig. 2 Complementary processes towards police reform

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the system (Handy 1998, p. 248), and for the PNP, this is the municipal police jurisdiction. It is possible to promote social reform, and with it improvements in police ethics management and police governance if discussions among people who are in favour of such reform is carried out, as such discussions are likely to intensify underlying convictions and concerns (Sunstein 2003, p. 88). This would require a mechanism for reflection and learning among participating stakeholders as well as a means for collaboration where meanings could be constructed and mutually understood. While reflection could be considered an individual activity among participants, deliberation as part of collaborative effort, is the means through which the results of reflection could be made accessible to everyone involved (Shapiro 2003, p. 122). Subsidiarity requires that those who exercise decision making responsibilities would have to learn the competence towards these responsibilities (Handy 1998, p. 248). Hopefully, collaboration as a mechanism for reflection and learning could make this possible. Municipalities are small enough to be able to manage collaborative inquiries and deliberative discussions of this kind. The Collaborative Inquiry Discussion The collaborative inquiry discussion took place in a church hall in the small rural town of Isabel, which is in the large island of Leyte Province in the central Philippines. This discussion was free flowing and open ended. Participants included the pastor of that church, who also happens to be a community leader and is involved in the PNP-MOST program; a local civic action leader who works with police regularly; a local businessman; a community chief and two members of the local PNP, including the chief of police. This is not a prescribed format for participants in collaborative forums like this, as participatory governance is supposed to be open and democratic. It is, however, important to note that the composition and size of such discussion groups be dependent on the organisational ability of discussion facilitators. In the case of this study, this composition was meant to be representative of the most important community sectors and stakeholders in that town in relation to policing. Other municipalities at other times may have different groups of participants. Neither the police nor any of the other participants were allowed to control the proceedings. The facilitation of the discussion always kept everyone on as equal a footing as possible while maintaining the freedom to choose to participate or not. The results of this collaborative discussion led to the following conclusions: • Far from being ‘inexpert’, local citizens actually have competent expertise in understanding complex issues, including policing, and are able to propose and work on practical solutions to existing problems. In Ulrich’s (1987) terms, these citizens have the capacity to critically understand boundary judgements. • Local police, at least in this instance, would actually welcome public participation, although it would take some time to build the mindset that citizens and the wider public are equal collaborators with police in police management and governance. • Both the police and the non-police participants of this discussion understood that the root cause of unethical and corrupt police behaviour is partly the result of the police institution’s problems and partly the consequence of society’s own attitude towards corruption. This has led to mutual understanding and practical proposals towards police-community cooperation. • In effect, collaborative inquiry could be a possible means through which police and local communities could develop close knit knowledge organisations at the community level. This could, if conducted repeatedly over time, perhaps embed civic competency

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(Ulrich 2003, p. 5; Elkin 1985, p. 182) in the community and mutual respect and understanding between police and citizens. This was a first attempt at collaborative inquiry between police and non-police community stakeholders at the town level in the Philippines. The purpose behind it was to determine if it was possible to carry out such a process at all, and it workable results could be obtained through it. It could be the first step towards complementing the ITP and its top-down mandates, as well as the eventual formation of a close knit knowledge structure at the municipal level. It is possible to be cautiously optimistic and state that this is feasible, as demonstrated in this last part of this study. However, continuing future research would be the only way to determine if this first step is really sustainable over time. There are still many obstacles that may impede police reform, among them the sheer size and nature of the police bureaucracy, possibly public apathy in other municipalities, national level logistical and financial issues that are beyond the capacity of local collaborative structures to address, and the internal security situation in the Philippines. However, building a learning structure using collaboration among equal stakeholders is a long term project, and so this study is not intended to be the final word. It is merely a first step. It is also not intended to solve all the problems of the PNP, given its limitations, but it may provide an important complement to the PNP’s own approach and make ordinary people part of the process of reforming what is essentially one of society’s most important institutions.

Conclusion This study is not the first effort at developing a participatory model for managing police ethics and governance. It is, however, the first in which the PNP is concerned. The problems affecting the PNP are not only institutional, they are, in the final analysis, the consequences of the broader colonial history, political instability, economic problems and social issues affecting the Philippines. The PNP’s institutional approach towards improving itself, particularly with regard to its material, procedural and ethical problems through the ITP is a worthwhile effort. However, because unethical behaviour and corruption in policing, which are deeply related to the PNP’s material and procedural problems, are part of the wider social attitude towards corruption, the ITP and any other institutional approach could not, in themselves, deal with the problems of the PNP. Because the wider society is a significant part of the issue of police corruption, the resolution of such an issue should involve the active and equal participation of the wider public. In this regard, the mechanism of collaborative inquiry at the local levels of policing is proposed as a possible instrument for such an approach. This could, if employed appropriately, help the police and citizens of the communities they serve to work towards a mutual realisation of the issues affecting them, understand each other’s perspectives, and work and learn together through collaboration towards becoming a better community and a better police. Collaborative inquiry at the local and community level may become an effective complement to the institutional approaches towards reform that police agencies like the PNP have established and put to work.

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