By Christopher Lloyd Caliwan | Philippine News Agency
The Philippine National Police (PNP) would push through with the implementation of the ban on visible tattoos for personnel and aspiring police officers.
This came as PNP chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil lifted the moratorium on the measure, PNP spokesperson Col. Jean Fajardo said in a phone interview on Monday.
“Last July 3, the chief PNP approved the lifting of the moratorium. This means the guidelines, particularly the non-bearing of tattoos, particularly for those entering the PNP, will be implemented. Definitely, the applicants who are interested in entering the PNP service via recruitment or lateral entry or even PNP Academy (PNPA), they can’t join the PNP and PNPA,” Fajardo said in Filipino.
The PNP earlier suspended the tattoo ban due to the request of some police officers and for the PNP Health Service (HS) to assess the declaration submitted by active police personnel who have tattoos.
Fajardo said information from the declarations would be part of the police officers’ health profiles and they would be given three months to have these visible tattoos removed.
She, however, said the PNP’s technical working group has yet to release rules on the removal of the existing visible tattoos.
She said police officers have to shoulder the expenses of tattoo removal as the PNP Health Service has no equipment for this purpose.
Another subject of discussion is the prescribed period for the removal of multiple visible tattoos for active policemen due to medical concerns, she said.
“What if a particular PNP personnel has visible tattoos, not one, not two but more than that. Do these need to be removed at one time? The HS is still formulating a specific procedure for this,” she said.
Police officers who would fail to comply with the three-month rule on tattoo removal will be subjected to investigation and may face administrative charges.
“Kung meron naman medical reasons, probably, he will be given ample time to comply but for those who would refuse without justifiable reason then malinaw na nakasaad sa circular that they may be subjected to administrative sanctions,” Fajardo said.
Earlier, cops with existing tattoos are required to execute an affidavit, declaring their markings that are not visible.
The policy excludes aesthetic tattoos, such as but not limited to eyebrows, eyeliner, or lips, Fajardo said.
The PNP said unauthorized tattoos include extremist, ethnically, or religiously discriminatory and offensive, indecent tattoos, racist, sexist, and tattoos associated with prohibited or unauthorized groups.
