CAMP DANGWA, La Trinidad, Benguet – The leadership of the Police Regional Office (PRO) in the Cordillera disclosed two of its internet-based interventions are now being replicated in the national headquarters and the different PROs nationwide considering the stringent requirements of the Performance Governance System (PGS) of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in order to earn the trust and confidence of the people to the police force in the future.
Superintendent Cherry Ann Olucan, chief of the PRO-COR’s finance division, cited the geographic information system-based crime analysis (GISBCA) and the e-learning programs of the regional command are now also in place in the national headquarters and the PROs.
It was learned that the GISBCA and the e-learning system was conceptualized by the PRO-COR leadership and has been seen as good programs that were already emulated and put in place in the PGS.
The PGS is a system that gauges the performance of the country’s police force through the active participation of the public under its regular functions and feedback mechanism from the concerned stakeholders in the communities where the police work.
Under the GISBCA, real time crime statistics are recorded and the identified crime-prone areas and crime clock of a certain locality will be able to be closely monitored through the internet.
For the e-learning system, Olucan explained it is dedicated for the advancement of the men and women in uniform through a series of tests that could be undertaken through the internet.
According to her, e-learning was not designed to fail a police officer but it was aimed at improving their respective performances to allow them to cope up with the current trend of the fast-paced advancement on information and communication technology.
For his part, Chief Superintendent Roberto Quenery, PRO-COR deputy regional director for administration, cited the primary weakness of the PNP in complying with the implementation of the PGS is the resistance of the men and women in uniform to change because of their difficulty to adjust to the new trends in governance.
However, the police official explained there is nothing the police can do with what is now being enforced as part of the governance system because it has already been adopted and now being cascaded to the concerned sectors for them to understand the prevailing situation.
Quenery pointed out one of the gains of the PGS is that the implementation of the bottoms up budgeting where ordinary personnel are being consulted on their targets and required budgets for consideration by the higher headquarters.
Ironically, Quenery explained that the budgets coming from the grassroots level are not the ones actually considered for funding because there is a formula being used by the budget department to apportion the limited government resources to all the agencies and the local governments, thus, the need for the PNP to be proactive in outsourcing its resources from the host local government and the private sector in order to be able to effectively and efficiently implement its proactive peacekeeping initiatives to achieve lasting peace in the countryside.
He appealed to the public for their continuous support to the peacekeeping initiatives of the PNP in their respective places in order to guarantee a peaceful community. By Dexter A. See
