1

CROSS-BORDER LAW ENFORCEMENT: CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED IN

IMPOSING SAFETY PROTOCOLS DURING THE PANDEMIC

A Thesis Presented to

the Faculty of the Graduate School

Misamis University

Ozamiz City

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Science in Criminal Justice

by

____________________________

December 2020
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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Law enforcement is an occupation that is more “at risk” of physical and

psychological harm, as its members are called on to be first responders to critical

incidents (Drew & Martin, 2020). During a pandemic, like COVID-19, law enforcement

agencies are responsible for working with government and public health officials to

contain spread, serve the local community, and maintain public order. Given the person-

to-person spread of COVID19 through respiratory droplets, law enforcement officers are

also at a heightened risk of exposure due to their close contact with members of the

public (Jennings & Perez, 2020).

The COVID-19 pandemic created social upheaval and altered norms for all

members of society, but its effects on first responders have been particularly profound.

The threat of COVID-19 and the challenges of social distancing policies presents a

particular problem for small rural law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement officers,

like the police have been expected to coordinate local shutdowns, encourage social

distancing, and enforce stay-at-home mandates all while completing the responsibilities

for which they are already understaffed and underfunded (Stogner, Miller, & McLean,

2020). 

COVID-19 presents critical challenges for police leadership in supporting personnel

in an environment that has both physical and mental health impacts. In the COVID-19

environment it appears some lessons have been learnt from previous experiences, with
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much more rapid action to support law enforcement who fall ill, most notably with

physical outcomes (Drew & Martin, 2020). Every single officer involved in operational

duties is working in a context that presents a risk of harm—every day, on every shift.

Reports indicate that officers who are now returning to work following COVID-19-

related sick leave are fearful that they will be re-infected, given immunity to the virus

remains unknown (Dazio, Sisak, & Bleiberg, 2020).

Many countries responded to the pandemic by restricting international air travel,

closing borders to foreigners, and issuing stay-at-home orders/shelter-in-place orders to

their citizens (White & Fradella, 2020). Though the specifics of these public heath orders

vary by state, they generally prohibit travel outside of the home except for essential

services, including healthcare workers and first-responders, and a pre-set list of essential

activities that includes purchasing food or medicine, checking on a relative, and traveling

for health care (California Executive Order N-33-20, 2020).

In the United States, studies have conducted to assess the different functions of

police officers during the pandemic. For example, Reaves (2015) reported that 21% of

police departments serving fewer than 2500 residents had established local problem-

solving partnerships, while participation rose to 86% among agencies with 1000,000 or

more people in their jurisdictions. If agencies collaborate with nearby law enforcement

organizations, a remaining concern is that multiple jurisdictions could be affected by

COVID-19 if regional dispatch centers experienced staffing shortages (Robson, 2020).

Further, every state in the United States has a public health act, which allows the

state’s health officials to enact measures, such as social distancing, isolation, quarantine,

travel restrictions, contact tracing, treatment, and vaccination, to protect the health of

residents during a pandemic (Rothstein 2015). Local and state law enforcement is often
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tasked with explaining and enforcing these measures in the community (Rothstein 2015).

Since law enforcement is “inherently close-contact work with strangers and some of the

most marginalized people,” police officers are on the front lines when dealing with

pandemics and enforcing response measures, while simultaneously being at a greater risk

of exposure and infection (Poston 2020).

In enforcing local and state law during health emergency, the U.S. National

Fraternal Order of Police reported that 82 law enforcement officers had died from

COVID-19 by the end of April 2020 (Hansen & Lory, 2020). The Officer Down

Memorial Page (2020) uses a different reporting system and inclusion criteria but stated

that 16 law enforcement officers had died from “duty-related illness” in the first 4 months

of 2020, 15 because of COVID-19, while 17 officers had been shot and killed. Although

the officer deaths from coronavirus so far have been disproportionately in large agencies,

it remains unclear at the time of this writing whether rural areas will be largely spared

from the pandemic, or if the wave will arrive later and ultimately impact rural areas the

hardest (Miller, Becker, Grenfell, and Metcalf,2020).

As the government relies on the justice system to ensure community safety and to

protect the community not only from common threats to public or individual safety such

as domestic violence, gangs, guns, or drugs but also from COVID-19, they afford them

with additional powers. How the police carry out those powers and policies during the

pandemic becomes of utmost importance as these drastic measures can impact police

legitimacy. Whether or not the police can successfully respond to this crisis does not only

depend on lawmakers or the government but also on public trust and confidence, and the

public is seeing the police as a legitimate power holder. Research consistently shows that
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whether the public trusts the police and views it as legitimate has important consequences

of whether or not people obey the law (Bottoms and Tankebe, 2012; Mazerolle et al.,

2013; Terrill, Paoline, & Gau, 2016).

Collectively, 188 countries have been on a pause, stopping religious meetings,

sports events, and other social gatherings, while closing their borders and businesses

including schools which affect 1.5 billion students. On March 16, 2020, The Philippine

government imposed a total lockdown in Luzon, known as the Enhanced Community

Quarantine (ECQ), as a preventive measure to minimize the COVID-19 outbreak. This

ECQ is widely known as one of the longest lockdown in the world (. Under the ECQ, all

modes of domestic travel, including ground, air, and sea, were suspended. Residents were

not allowed to leave their homes except in case of emergencies. Border closures and

entry bans were also enforced. Thousands of police officers and military personnel were

deployed at checkpoints to ensure that people complied with the lockdown. The

administration also implemented, through several platforms as preventive measures, strict

social distancing (Duddu, 2020, CSIS, 2020) and educated the community on healthy

lifestyles.

With the sustained economic crash, which may result in more non-COVID-19

deaths and social despair linked to prolonged confinement, which may negatively affect

people, a well-designed exit strategy is a significant step (Gilbert et al., 2020).

Kupferschmidt (2020) further elaborated that a lockdown exit strategy must carefully

consider the triangulation of “the health of their citizens, the freedoms of their

population, and economic constraints”. These factors could be translated into three

control knobs for governments: (1) isolation of patients and contact tracing, (2) border
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restrictions, and (3) social distancing (Kupferschmidt, 2020). Closely linked to

maintaining public health standards is the protocol that there must be limited movement

of persons. While this limited movement supports economic restart through cross-border

movements, it also ensures that those movements are just related to essential activities to

support the economy (Ocampo & Yamagishi, 2020). 

Nevertheless, the Philippine government is catching up. With the declaration of

the national state of emergency by the executive branch, the entire country was placed

under strict regulation through community quarantines and lockdowns (Torrentira, 2020).

Metro Manila was even put into the tighter implementation of the quarantine. Thousands

of people are refused entry into the country's capital and lockdowns in major cities mean

very strict discipline imposed by the military and the police (Maboloc, 2020).

Shaped in accordance with international best practices and the World Health

Organization’s (WHO) recommendations, the guidelines provide information on how

officers can protect themselves and their families, and outline the various roles carried

out by law enforcement during a pandemic, including border control and maintaining

public order (Interpool, 2020). In Misamis Occidental, just like any other provinces in the

Philippines, health protocols have been strictly implemented following the guidelines

imposed by the Inter-Agency Task Force organized by the executive of the Philippine

government to respond to affairs concerning emerging infectious diseases in

the Philippines, especially relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, entry within

borders are in the safeguard of police authorities, who at the same time are put into high

risk in terms of their safety and security.

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Theoretical Framework

This study was anchored on the following theoretical lens: Protection Motivation

Theory and Theory of Planned Behavior.

The Protection Motivation Theory of Rogers (1975) hypothesizes that the

motivation to protect oneself from danger is a function of four cognitive beliefs. These

are as follows: (i) the threat is severe; (ii) one is personally vulnerable to the threat; (iii)

the coping response is effective in averting the threat; and (iv)one has the ability to

perform the coping response. Protection motivation is the proximal determinant of

protective behavior and often measured by or similar to intention. Thus, the cognitive

predictors (severity, vulnerability, response efficacy, and self-efficacy) should have

significant associations with intentions, which mediate their influence on behavior

performance. Many studies have measured self-reported and/or observed behavior as the

outcome variable of protection motivation.

Based on Protection Motivation Theory, when individuals encounter a threatening

event, they are primarily motivated to engage in protective behavior (Janmaimool, 2017).

According to previous research, individuals believe that performing preventive behavior

can reduce the threat that comes with a lack of action (Huang, Dai, Xu, 2014). During a

global crisis, providing reliable and accurate information is essential. In 2009, the public

believed that the H1N1 virus was more lethal than H5N1 human avian

flu and SARS because various forms of new infectious diseases were merged together.

Early knowledge of the outbreak can help to illustrate the public’s risk behavior and how

they perceived it. Moreover, Johnson and Hariharan (2017) highlighted that providing

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health education and creating awareness during an outbreak is an effective measure to

help prevent the spread of the disease. 

The Theory of Planned Behavior by Azjen (1985) is a theory used to understand

and predict behaviors, which posits that behaviors are immediately determined by

behavioral intentions and under certain circumstances, perceived behavioral control.

Behavioral intentions are determined by a combination of three factors: attitudes toward

the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. In broad terms, the

theory is found to be well supported by empirical evidence. Intentions to perform

behaviors of different kinds can be predicted with high accuracy from attitudes toward

the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control; and these intentions,

together with perceptions of behavioral control, account for considerable variance in

actual behavior. Attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control are shown

to be related to appropriate sets of salient behavioral, normative, and control beliefs about

the behavior, but the exact nature of these relations is still uncertain. Expectancy-value

formulations are found to be only partly successful in dealing with these relations.

Optimal rescaling of expectancy and value measures is offered as a means of dealing with

measurement limitations. Finally, inclusion of past behavior in the prediction equation is

shown to provide a means of testing the theory's sufficiency, another issue that remains

unresolved. The limited available evidence concerning this question shows that the theory

is predicting behavior quite well in comparison to the ceiling imposed by behavioral

reliability.

Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, a person’s behavioral intent is

profoundly affected by the behavioral norms of his social community (Ajzen, 2011). A
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critical stage in this approach is a thorough exposition of the problem that was

accomplished by intensive engagement with the various communities, leading to stronger

cultural norms (Biglan and Taylor, 2000). Thus, it is logical to conclude that the stronger

the group standards, the higher the level of understanding among the social community

members. 

Objective of the Study

This study will explore the challenges encountered by police officers in imposing

health and safety protocols along the borders of Misamis Occidental during the COVID-

19 pandemic.
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Chapter 2

METHODS

Research Design

This study will use the phenomenological research design. The phenomenological

approach is the assumption that human experience is mediated through interpretation

(Creswell, 2009); consequently, the core of the phenomenological approach is the interest

in other people’s experiences and the meaning they make of those experiences (Seidman,

1998). The phenomenological approach will be used in determining the lived experiences

of police officers in enforcing safety protocols along the borders of Misamis Occidental

during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study utilized Moustaka’s transcendental

phenomenology method of data analysis.

Research Setting

The study will be conducted within the borders of Sapandalaga and Bonifacio

of the province of Misamis Occidental. The province borders Zamboanga del Norte and

Zamboanga del Sur to the west and is separated from Lanao del Norte by Panguil Bay to

the South and Iligan Bay to the east. Misamis Occidental is located near the narrow strip

of land linking northwestern Mindanao, to the north central part of the island.  Shaped

like a collapsible fan or a loaf of American Bread or the fourth leter in the alphabet, it is

bounded on the northeast by the Mindanao Sea, East by the Iligan Ba, southeast by the

Panguil Bay, and the west by the Zamboanga Del Norte and Sur. The fact that three of its
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boundaries are bodies of water gives away water life as one of its natural resources and

findings as one of its main boundaries.

The province consists of fourteen municipalities, including the lately created Don

Victoriano Chiongbian. municipality and three cities namely: Oroquieta, Ozamiz and

Tangub. The provincial capital is Oroquieta City. Legislative Act. No. 3537 passed

November 2, 1929 divided the old province of Misamis into Misamis Occidental. The

Occidental comprise the towns of Baliangao, Lopez Jaena, Tudela, Clarin, Plaridel,

Oroquieta, Aloran, Jimenez, and Misamis. The Original nine municipalities of the

province grew intothe present three cities of Ozamiz, Oroquieta and Tangub anf fourteen

municipalities of Alron, Baliangao, Calamba, Clarin, Conception, don Victoriano,

Jimenez, Lopez Jaena, Panaon, Plaridel, Sapang Dalaga, Sinacaban and Tudela with a

total number of 490 barangays.

Research Participants

The participants of the study will be the police officers assigned in the borders

of Misamis Occidental to impose strict protocols in the entry to the province during the

period of the COVID-19 pandemic. They will be selected through purposive sampling.

Research Instrument

An interview guide will be used in eliciting information from the police officers

as research participants. Interviews will begin with the social conversation to set the

interviewee at ease and to continue the interview to solicit “rich and honest” responses.

Participants will be requested to be descriptive and to elaborate on their experiences.

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Before the report, interview questions will be piloted to test for clarification and to ensure

that the researcher can seek information in response to the research questions.

A voice recorder will be used to capture the essence of the responses from the

interviewees and to provide an accurate, detailed account of the interview process. This

will allow the researcher to refer back to interview to ensure that no details will be missed

out in the transcription and description from the responses.

Data Collection

First of all, gathering of research data will be conducted following important

health protocols: social distancing, wearing of face mask and face shield among others.

To ensure that the study will obtain the data it intends to gather, the researcher will secure

an informed and approved consent from the participants. The interview will digitally

recorded and transcribed. The interviews will happen during the available or vacant time

of the participants. It will last to approximately 20 to 30 minutes. Based on the responses,

questions will be altered to foster more detailed and thoughtful answers. A face to face

with proper social distancing interview will be used to add the benefit of being able to

clarify issues, ask further probing questions, and observe non-verbal communications.

The researcher will take notes at the interview and make notes of the participant behavior

observed and will add the memos to the journal. Moreover, a voice recorder will also be

used for the researcher to review what had transpired during the interview. The interview

will be transcribed by the researcher.

To start the interview, the researcher will greet and identify the participant and

review the purpose of the interview. The participant will be informed again of the right to

withdraw at any time and that the confidentiality will be maintained. Participants will be
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asked to review drafts of the written report of the study and give additional feedback to

establish the accuracy of the findings.

An interview protocol (Appendix A) will be followed. The questions will be

open-ended. As its characteristic of phenomenological interviews, the participants will be

encouraged to share with the researcher the details of their experiences. Probing

questions will be asked to gain the rich description needed for the study to clarify the

meaning of the participant’s statement. Participants in this study will be asked about their

experiences in imposing border protocols. The recorded interviews will be transcribed.

The researcher’s reflective notes of observations of the interviews will be collected and

added to the interview data.

Ethical Considerations

The researcher will secure approval from proper authorities before the actual

interview process commences. The study will ensure that all safety and health protocols

will be observed. Further, this study will guarantee that all the responses of the

respondents during the interview will be kept with utmost confidentiality, anonymity, and

integrity. Further, the researcher will assure that there will be no harm, either physical,

mentally, or emotionally, to the participants in the course of the interview until the

completion of this research study.

Data Analysis

In this study, Moustakas’ (1994) data analysis technique of phenomenological

reduction will be used. The transcripts of all participants gathered from the interviews

will be analyzed using the methods of Moustakas. The following are the steps in the
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phenomenological reduction which serves as guide in analyzing the data gathered: (1)

Bracketing, (2) Horizontalization, (3) Clustering into Themes, (4) Textural Description,

(5) Structural Description, and (6) Textural-Structural Synthesis.

Bracketing is an approach I will use to mitigate the effects of preconceived

notions and perceptions held before the study commences. It is a process of suspending

judgments and biases, or ‘epoche.’ Consequently, I will reach a deep level of inquiry

from topic and population selection, interview design, collection and interpretation, and

dissemination of research findings.

Horizontalization is technically referring to the listing of all the verbatim

expressions that will have bearing in the study. Initially, I will look into each statement

with equal value. Then, statements which will be found irrelevant, repetitive,

overlapping, and outside the scope of the study, will be ignored. Horizons, which are the

remaining sections after the data has been polished, will be considered as the constituent

and meaningful parts of the phenomenon. According to Moustakas, “horizons are

unlimited, and horizontalization is a never-ending process” (Moustakas, 1994).

Clustering is the third step in obtaining inferences from the study. It involves

reduction of experiences to invariant horizons, creating core themes, and validation of the

invariant horizons using multiple data sources. In reducing the statements into horizons, I

will cluster them into themes and ensure that each theme is implied with only one

meaning. This is considered as placing the phenomenon into a “textural language.” To

validate the invariant horizons obtained from the study, I will review findings of research

studies using other methods other than the data-gathering methods being used in the
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study like observation, field note-taking, focus group interviews and related literature.

This validation process is crucial to the accuracy and clarity of the representations.

Textural description, or ‘what occurred,’ refers to an account that describes the

perception of the phenomenon. In obtaining the textural description of the experience of

the participants, I will use the verbatim excerpts in the interview, and provide a narration

of the meaning units which were derived from the themes. Structural description, or how

it occurred’, is the integration of imaginative variation, which is an ingenious outlook and

insights, to the textural description. An imaginative variation is considered as the mental

experiment on analyzing the details and structures of the participants’ experience by

being detached from natural inclination through epoche. It is appended in each paragraph

of textural descriptions to generate a structural description.

In textural-structural synthesis process, I will collate the meaning units of each of

the participants and develop from it a composite of textural and structural descriptions

that are common to them. A narrative or synthesis represents all of the participants

written in a third person perspective. The primary goal of this final step of Moustakas’

method is to obtain the essence of the experience of the phenomenon.

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Kupferschmidt, K. (2020). The lockdowns worked—but what comes next?.

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Appendix A

Interview Protocol

Before the interview begins, the participants will be informed that:

1. The interview will be digitally recorded.
2. Their identity will remain confidential during the whole course of the study
and in writing the report of the study.
3. They can discontinue their participation any time.

Opening Questions
How old are you?
How long have you been working as a police officer?
For how long have you also been assigned in the border of Misamis
Occidental to impose the border protocols during this time of the pandemic?

Core Questions
How do you feel about your assignment as a police officer in the border?
How do you keep yourself protected from the risk of being infected with
COVID-19 while working?
How are people crossing the border behaving?
What problems have you encountered while imposing border protocols?
How did you respond to the problems or issues that happen?
What other challenges have you encountered as a security personnel in the
border?
How do you think the protocols will lessen risk of infection?

Closing Question
How did you cope with the challenges that you encountered?