PALO, Leyte — The regional office of the Philippine National Police (PNP) has turned over an initial 31 patrol cars to local government units in Eastern Visayas to boost police internal security operations.
Philippine National Police (PNP) regional director Chief Supt. Dionardo Carlos led the turnover of the PHP70.5 million worth of patrol cars, firearms, and other gears to mayors and chiefs of police on Monday in a ceremony at the PNP regional command here.
These include 15 units of light machine gun, 224 units of enhanced helmets, and 329 pieces of undershirt vest for the Regional Mobile Force Battalion 8 and to the provincial mobile forces battalion.
Thirty-one of the 59 police patrol car single cab 4×2 (Toyota Hilux) were handed over to local government units in the provinces of Eastern Samar, Leyte, and Southern Leyte. Other recipients are Ormoc City and Tacloban City. Each car is worth PHP1.1 million.
The remaining number of vehicles will be shipped to the region before the end of the year.
The patrol cars are meant to strengthen police operations intelligence gathering and administrative function of the policemen, according to Carlos.
“The PNP is doing all we can to provide all the needs of our police force especially in towns to help in improving their performance and reinforce their capabilities,” Carlos said.
“We are thankful to all top officials of the PNP headed by Director General Oscar Albayalde for their relentless support and their hard work to procure all the equipment needed by our police force,” he added.
The new patrol cars are replacements of old PNP patrol cars issued to police stations in the region because some of them are no longer functional.
The road condition in some places of Eastern Visayas is one of the reasons why some police stations had broken vehicles.
Although the maintenance of the vehicles is part of the PNP’s regular funds, the budget is not enough, thus, they have been asking financial support of local chief executives. (Roel Amazona/PNA)
