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By Maricel V. Cruz, Reporter
The Philippine National Police has ordered its
uniformed personnel manned to desk or office jobs to go out on the
streets so as to deter the prevention of crimes.
National Police Chief Director General Avelino
Razon Jr. over the weekend said administrative duties in the offices
and police stations are now being performed by non-uniformed
personnel to maximize the effective strength of uniformed personnel
performing law enforcement functions.
According to the national police chief, 94.8
percent of the 120,000 uniformed personnel are now assigned to field
duties, while only 5.2 percent are performing administrative
functions in the offices and stations.
“This ratio is unprecedented. When we reached
our target of 90-percent field deployment ratio, we realized that we
can still afford to download 5 percent more without compromising
administrative management functions,” Razon said.
In a report submitted to Razon, Police Director
Edgardo Acuña, the Director for Personnel and Records Management,
said a total of 14,544 police inspectors and police officers I, or
PO1, have been downloaded from the national and regional
headquarters to the field units.
The police inspectors, with a rank equivalent o
Lieutenant in the military, include newly-commissioned officers who
graduated from the Philippine National Police Academy in 2007 and
2008.
The national police also designated 121
non-uniformed personnel to administrative positions that were
formerly occupied by uniformed personnel in the national and
regional headquarters.
These include positions for division chief,
assistant division chief, section chief, assistant section chief,
supply officer and regional accountant.
Undermanned municipal stations
“Our goal is to deploy a minimum of 21 police
personnel in each of the country’s 1,559 municipal police
stations. At present, there are still 243 municipal police stations
that are manned by less than 21 personnel,” Acuña said.
Most of these municipal stations in MIMAROPA
(Occidental and Oriental Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan),
Eastern Visayas, Northern Mindanao, Autonomous Region for Muslim
Mindanao, and Cordillera.
Apart from the downloading of personnel to the
field, the national police is also pouring more resources and funds
for field operations.
The bloody robbery-massacre of the RCBC branch
in Laguna that resulted in the death of 10 civilians, mostly bank
employees, triggered the deployment of more uniformed police
personnel to the field.
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