Over 1,300 cops meted with disciplinary action in 2007

By Ronron
January 22, 2008

Over 1,300 personnel of the Philippine National Police (PNP) were meted with various forms of disciplinary action for the entire year of 2007, police records showed Tuesday.

Based on the summary of data provided by Director Edgardo Acuña, chief of the PNP Directorate for Personnel and Records Management (DPRM), 256 personnel were dismissed from the service; 53 were demoted; 448 were suspended; 336 were forfeited of their salary; 240 were reprimanded; two were restricted; and 10 were forced to resign.

Acuña said most of those dismissed from the service were those who went on absence-without-official-leave, while the remaining few violated the law such as on anti-corruption.

The 1,345 personnel who were meted with penalties were involved in 1,120 cases, and many of them (1,224 to be specific) are non-commissioned officers. The rest are commissioned officers (83) and non-uniformed personnel (38), Acuña’s record showed.

He said the 2007 figure is just relatively similar to the 2006 data.

Aside from the 1,345 punished personnel, 14 other personnel were slapped with the minor disciplinary action of admonishment and warning, and 308 others were dropped from the rolls last year.

“We are really resolving these disciplinary cases as they come to show to our policemen and the public that we are imposing disciplinary actions,” Acuña said.

“The message we are sending here is that we’d like to professionalize the rank and file of the police force by strictly enforcing the laws and regulations, and the policies off the Philippine National Police across all units,” he added.

Acuña said that by penalizing erring personnel, this would “translate to enhancing public service and strengthen the advocacy of servant leadership.”

The PNP currently has a strength of 125, 000 uniformed personnel, way below the ideal 170,000-strong force to achieve the ideal policeman-civilian ratio of 1:500, Acuña revealed.

The lack in policemen, however, has been addressed already since 2006 when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo authorized the yearly recruitment of 3,000 to 3,500 policemen for five years, he said.

For this year, Acuña said 3,500 policemen will be recruited to meet the target strength of 170,000, while another group of 4,500 policemen will also be hired to fill-up the positions left behind by those who retired, resigned or have been removed from the service.

Acuña said that hopefully, the PNP strength in 2010 when Arroyo ends her term is anywhere between 138,000 to 140,000 already./DMS