I was talking with some friends the other night and one of the topics that came up was on our firemen. It seems that our rescue rangers are more than meets the eye. Sad but true.
The bungalow of my friend's uncle was caught on fire about a week before Chinese New Year. The whole family was lucky enough to escape unscathed, thanks to some Indonesians who were doing renovation work on the house next door. The firemen finally came and naturally, they were the first to get into the house before anyone else once the fire was extinguished.
To make the story short, one of them was caught red-handed pocketing the uncle's Rolex!! He denied it when confronted, but after some persuasions, he finally relented to return the watch on the condition that he was to be given some "compensation" in return.
Unbelievable, is it not? True, though, and apparently this is a common enough occurrence among policemen and firemen that people actually expect them to happen.
What does that say, then, about our uniformed forces?
We read in the papers about how the image of the police force was tarnished because of some incidents. About how the big people in the force made comments and promises that these should not have happened, and that they will be investigated and solved as soon as possible, and that a commission will be set up to handle this case or that case.. but in the end, it's just one of the typical things we see among Malaysians: all talk and no decisive action. I wonder what actually happened to all those commissions. Still investigating? Inactive? Dead? Too bad there's no weekly report that the general public can see to keep track of their progress.
It's lot of work to gain back the trust of the people, and as far as I can see, it's not going to happen. Ask around and you will hear all sorts of stories. Logically, it has to start from within. They will have to clean up their acts, get rid of the staff with bad records and negative influence, be professionals, be fully committed to their work and most important of all, to hold sacred the trust given by the people.
Still, the question remains: Dare we trust them anymore?
