One takeaway from police lapses in the investigation into the death of Christine Dacera — the flight attendant found unconscious in a bathtub in a Makati hotel and later pronounced dead — is that a lot of police work is more of cops just thinking aloud.
"I think there’s really rape," Police Gen. Debold Sinas, national police chief, said before the city prosecutor's office handed back the complaint filed against men she was partying with on New Year's Eve for further investigation.
Prosecutors disagreed, saying: “After a thorough examination of the evidence presented on inquest, this Office finds that there are certain matters that need to be clarified to determine the participation and culpability of each respondent for the alleged rape and killing of [Dacera].”
It was not even clear, the prosecutor pointed out, if Dacera was killed at all.
READ: Dacera's body embalmed prior to autopsy, Metro Manila police chief confirms
The resolution, and the acknowledgement of lapses, came after Sinas announced a manhunt for people allegedly involved even when no warrant for their arrest had been issued by a court.
Dr. Raquel Fortun, one of only two forensic pathologists in the Philippines, has long cast doubt on law enforcement's ability to conduct forensic investigations and the police's apparent failure in this case — out of eagerness, the regional police chief explains — is shocking but not really new.
There have been calls to review police policy and to upgrade their skills in forensics but these aren't new either and will take time if they even happen at all.
What would be new, in light of other lapses in police investigations and procedure, is us revoking the benefit of the doubt we've granted the police even if it will hurt their feelings.
This will be easier said than done, partly because of their own propaganda about their putting their lives on the line to keep us safe.
That is not entirely untrue and that is supposed to be their job but that shouldn't give them a carte blanche to break procedure because their hearts are in the right place.
One also has to consider how their idea of keeping us safe might not actually make us safe.
Doubting the police is easier said than done because most police reporting that I have read has been repeating police reports, sometimes down to the jargon used in those reports, and basically trusting that the incident reports are honest accounts of what happened.
Anyone who saw how the incident reports on the June 20 shooting of Army intelligence personnel by police officers in Sulu — they evolved from a shootout to a "misencounter" to criminal complaints against police officers involved — will know that that is not always the case.
READ: What we know so far on the Jolo 'misencounter' shooting
Incident reports are meant for the eyes of police officials and are not expected to show the full picture of ongoing investigations.
Taking them at face value can hurt people too, as in coverage of the killings and arrests of Tumandok indigenous peoples' leaders in Panay Island on December 30 that was first reported in national media as operations against suspected New People's Army rebels.
According to alternative media outfit Kodao, which sought input from groups on the ground, the supposed suspected NPAs were actually IP leaders who had been campaigning against a dam project on the island. Among those killed was a barangay councilor earlier accused of being a rebel.
Taking police reports as Gospel truth meant unnecessarily justifying the killings and arrests and sweeping aside what may have been the actual reason for them.
Giving police the benefit of the doubt can mean prematurely painting Dacera's friends as rapists and prompting two lawmakers to announce bounties on their heads — moves that make good press but also point to a failure in a criminal justice system that would require measures more appropriate for spaghetti westerns.
Taking their statements at face value may mean making people believe a dead woman was raped based on theories not yet backed by evidence.
Maybe they do mean well, but that doesn't mean that the police are particularly good at what they do.
Sweeping that aside out of a sense of gratitude or so their morale will stay high helps nobody, not even them.