When Compassion Meets a Bolo

“Maximum tolerance.”

It is a phrase we often hear when police deal with people who are unruly, emotionally distressed, or apparently experiencing a mental-health crisis.

But what happens when maximum tolerance meets a bolo?

That question became painfully real in San Jose, Camarines Sur, on August 22, when police responded to a report of an armed man running amok in Barangay Calalahan.

Police Staff Sergeant Noli Miraña and his fellow officers initially tried to communicate with the man and de-escalate the situation. But the man allegedly charged at the officers and attacked Miraña with a bolo, severely injuring his face and severing his left hand.

His fellow officers then shot the attacker in the thighs to stop the assault. Miraña's hand was later successfully reattached at Bicol Medical Center.

The incident raises a question that is uncomfortable but necessary:

Where do we draw the line?

Mental-health problems deserve compassion. A person experiencing a mental-health crisis should not automatically be treated as a criminal or a threat simply because of his condition.

But compassion has never meant allowing someone to hurt another person.

There is a difference between understanding dangerous behavior and tolerating dangerous behavior.

And once an armed person is actively attacking someone, the equation changes.

The police cannot be expected to stand there and say, “We understand,” while waiting for the bolo to make its next appointment.

That does not mean the answer should always be force. The PNP itself says de-escalation should be prioritized whenever circumstances allow. But when there is an imminent threat to life, officers must be prepared to act decisively.

In the San Jose incident, that sequence appears to have happened: communication first, force only after the situation turned into an immediate physical attack.

But perhaps the bigger question is what happens before police are called.

If a person is already showing signs of a serious mental-health crisis, who notices?

Who intervenes? Who has the authority and resources to get that person professional help? And when does a family situation become a community-safety concern?

We often expect the police to be everything at once: first responder, negotiator, mental-health crisis worker and, when everything goes wrong, the last line of defense. That is asking a lot from people who may arrive knowing only that someone is running around with a bolo.

The PNP is now reviewing response protocols and considering additional protective and nonlethal equipment for officers handling dangerous situations.

That is necessary.

But equipment is only part of the answer.

If we really want fewer situations ending with a policeman's hand being severed—or someone being shot—we have to move the intervention farther upstream.

The best mental-health crisis response is the one that begins before the crisis becomes a police emergency.

We should provide treatment rather than simply punishment whenever treatment is appropriate.

But we should also be honest enough to admit that compassion does not require society to accept preventable violence.

A person's condition may explain his behavior.

It does not require everyone else to become its victim.

So perhaps the question is not whether we should show maximum tolerance.

Perhaps the better question is:

Why are we waiting until maximum tolerance is the only thing standing between a person in crisis and somebody else's life?