*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DMgt
It was a humid afternoon inside a cramped operations room in Camp Crame. The walls were cluttered with maps of the Philippines, filled with pins marking syndicate routes — red for drug trafficking, blue for smuggling, and yellow for cybercrime hubs. Around the table, men and women from different agencies debated with quiet urgency. The intelligence was credible, the suspects were identified, and the team was ready. Yet everything stood still.
Someone finally whispered, “Sir, we want to move… but we can’t.”
It was not fear that froze the room — it was limitation. The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC), under Executive Order No. 46, had the vision to fight organized crime and the moral legitimacy to lead the nation’s anti-crime efforts. But it also had a leash: it could coordinate, but not command; recommend, but not always act. Its personnel were drawn from other agencies, its operations reliant on cooperation. The Commission was like a lion behind glass — fierce in intent, but confined by its design (Official Gazette, 2011).
That day, I understood something profound: sometimes, justice is not delayed by evil, but by administrative paralysis.
Years later, that moment returned to me when I heard the name Gen. Benjamin Acorda Jr. again — no longer as a classroom participant, but as a national figure. He was once my student in the Directorial Staff Course, a man whose silence often spoke louder than speeches. During one of our leadership sessions, I asked the class, “What is the hardest part of command?”
He paused, then said softly, “Sir, it’s doing the right thing when no one agrees with you.”
Those words, simple but resolute, encapsulated the kind of moral leadership our institutions desperately need — especially within structures as limited yet essential as the PAOCC.
Through the years, I have seen officers struggle not because they lacked courage, but because the system lacked flexibility. Investigations stalled over clearances. Coordination drowned in hierarchy. Good people were left waiting for authorizations while criminals moved freely. These are not the failures of individuals; they are the cracks of a fragmented system.
Under EO 46, the PAOCC’s member-agencies — the PNP, NBI, PDEA, NICA, DOJ, AFP, DICT, BOC, BI, and others — carry immense collective power. Yet that power remains dormant without an operational mechanism that unites them beyond formality. It is within this context that the creation of a Task Force on Organized Crime, through a Resolution of the Member-Agencies under Executive Order No. 46, becomes not only logical but moral.
Such a resolution is not rebellion; it is redemption. It allows the Commission to act within its mandate yet transcend its paralysis. Through joint commitment, the member-agencies can give the PAOCC a body capable of movement — a structure that respects legal bounds but breathes with unity and resolve.
This is not about creating another office; it is about awakening a conscience. The fight against organized crime cannot be won by laws alone — it must be fought by men and women who still believe that integrity has a place in governance.
When I think of Gen. Acorda, I see that belief personified. He was never loud, but his quiet strength could steady a storm. He proved that the most effective leaders are those who guide systems that are slow to move — not with impatience, but with patience anchored in purpose.
He once told me, “Sir, systems may stall, but conscience doesn’t.”
And perhaps, that is why his leadership resonates in a time when institutions often forget their humanity.
The envisioned resolution among the PAOCC member-agencies will breathe new life into the Commission’s mandate. It will transform its coordination into collaboration, its structure into synergy, its silence into strategy. When the agencies finally sign that document — when the PNP, NBI, PDEA, and others commit their best officers to a shared cause — it will be more than administrative reform. It will be an act of faith in the system’s ability to correct itself.
The title of the resolution may speak of organized crime, but its real enemy is disorganization — the scattered will of institutions trapped in their own walls. This resolution will remind them that they were not created to compete but to cooperate; not to protect their turf, but to protect the Republic.
I often think back to that day in Camp Crame — that moment of stillness when everyone wanted to move but couldn’t. I imagine that if the Resolution had already existed, if unity had already been institutionalized, the story would have ended differently.
And now, perhaps it can.
When systems stall, conscience must move. And when it does — guided by the kind of moral leadership embodied by men like Gen. Benjamin Acorda Jr. — it has the power to turn even the most limited structure into a force of transformation.
This, after all, is the quiet revolution our institutions need: not the noise of new laws, but the moral movement of existing ones finally fulfilled.
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