By Christopher Lloyd Caliwan/Philippine News Agency
MANILA — The Philippine National Police (PNP) on Tuesday revitalized its internal cleansing program through the implementation of a “squad concept” that emphasizes values formation, spiritual development and strengthening family ties of its personnel.
PNP chief, Gen. Oscar Albayalde said this method is more intimate and personal as it covers spiritual and personal aspects, values formation and family matter which he said are among the factors affecting a police officer’s character.
Under the “squad concept”, a squad leader and a representative from the religious sector will be in charge of teaching and guiding cops.
“They will be divided into teams, squad means more or less six to eight members and you have the squad leaders. So this is more personal, more intimate,” Albayalde said.
“This is one way of changing attitude. Well, of course, we want to create God-fearing personnel, family-based organization and service-oriented personnel,” he added.
Albayalde said they are looking forward to having all PNP personnel be a part of a squad team as a preventive measure to avoid them from being involved in illegal activities.
However, due to lack of qualified personnel who can serve as leaders, they will be prioritizing the personnel facing administrative charges but still has potential to be restored and be reintegrated in the service.
He said the squad leader will remain even if the member is no longer facing any administrative charges.
The PNP Chief said that the Directorate of Chief of Operations (DCO) will be the committee chair who will monitor squad leaders.
“We have a committee chaired by the DCO. The internal cleansing committee will oversee the whole program. The first that I assumed office I created the committee, that’s the internal cleansing committee headed by the DCO,” he said.
Albayalde said the training in Zambales can only accommodate a limited number of persons at a time while those being assigned in Mindanao are usually being assigned back to their original post and will anyway, just continue their illegal activities.
He noted that the PNP is continuously strengthening the PNP recruitment to not let any “potential” erring cops from entering their ranks by using just barcodes to avoid politics.
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