BAGUIO CITY – The City Government remains optimistic that the leadership of the Philippine National Police (PNP) will not take too long in submitting to him the shortlist of qualified senior officers where the screening committee will again select the next City Director of the Baguio City Police Office (BCPO).
Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan said it took the PNP at least two years before it submitted to him the shortlist of qualified senior police officers where the screening committee selected the replacement of former BCPO chief Senior Superintendent Jesus Cambay who was unceremoniously relived from his post without justifiable reasons.
He expressed disappointment over the practice of the PNP to place officers-in-charge in lieu of permanent BCPO chiefs that exceed the 30-day grace period enshrined in the law to suit the interests of whoever will be the senior official that is dictating such scenario.
“We are wondering why there is always a fast turnover of police officials in the BCPO when the law provides that the tour of duty of police chiefs should be a maximum of two years. What is in BCPO that the other police offices do not have, thus, there is always a fast turnover of police officers,”Domogan stressed.
Former BCPO chief Senior Superintendent George Daskeo, who served as officer-in-charge of the local police force in January 2016, was chosen by the screening as City Director in June but he was suddenly unceremoniously relieved from his position on September 30.
Domogan said the problem with the PNP is just they simply replace a police chief without the proper consultations with the concerned local chief executive who deserve to be informed on the justifiable reasons for the sudden relief of their police chiefs.
According to him the proposal of Senator Panfilo Lacson to remove the power of local chief executives in the selection of police chiefs in their areas of jurisdiction is tantamount to move away the PNP from the local government, thus, it is also proper for the PNP to stop requesting financial and technical support from the local governments in the provision of their maintenance and other operating expenses and mobility among others and that the same must already be left to the national government.
Instead of supposedly having a closer relationship with the local government, the local chief executive pointed out it seems that the PNP is trying to deprive concerned local officials with the powers vested on them to appoint the police chief in their areas of jurisdiction by circumventing the law in coming out with flimsy reasons just to justify the relief of an official that they do not like and replace the same with an officer-in-charge that tends to listen to their dictates.
He said it is high time for the PNP leadership to end such wrong practice if they want that people will continue to bestow their trust and confidence to them.
It was learned that Daskeo, who was promised a position for his supposed promotion in Camp Crame, is now in a floating status contrary to what was promised him just to leave BCPO.
By Dexter A. See
