COPS Quick Facts

Home

COPS Search

COPS Quick Facts

Judges' experiences

During the two-day final judging of the Search for Country’s Outstanding Policemen in Service (COPS) last June 4 and 5, the members of the Final Board of Judges commended the finalists for their dedication to their sworn duty. They were also one in saying that their judging experience, which allowed them to interact with the finalists, changed the way they look at policemen. Here are their exact words from the interviews conducted by the Corporate Communications Unit of the Metrobank Foundation.

1. The Search is a joint undertaking between the Metrobank Foundation, Inc. and the Rotary Club of New Manila East in partnership with the Philippine National Police and PSBank.

2. What makes the Search different from other competition is its emphasis on Community Policing. The organizers of the competition strongly believe that maintaining peace and order is a shared responsibility between the police and the community they serve. This means that the police should know the members of the community and have earned their respect in order to seek their assistance in identifying possible suspects to a crime, while at the same time, the community is impassioned enough to take an active role in assisting and working with the police force in order to ensure the peace.

3. The Search seeks to honor the men and women of the police force who share this view and have actively implemented programs that allows for and motivates the community to become partners in ensuring peace and order.

4. While the emphasis is on community partnership, this does not mean that only policemen and women assigned to police-relations have a chance of winning in the competition or that it is only open for police officers assigned in Police-Community relations. As a matter of fact, based on our records, only 11 out of the 50 or roughly 20% of the awardees were actually assigned in Police-Community Relations.

5. What is important is that in one form or another, the policeman or woman is able to encourage or mobilize the community in the task of maintaining peace and order. This could include actions that involve setting up intelligence networks within the community or something as simple as conducting regular meetings with private sector organizations.