PNP: Tough, smart cops to see action in Mindanao

The Philippine National Police is looking into deploying tough but smart police officers in Mindanao,  reversing the old practice of assigning scalawags in uniform to the troubled island.

Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, PNP deputy chief for operations, said new measure is also crucial in the implementation of the peace agreement that President Rodrigo Duterte helped pushed and realized with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

“In the past three years, the security landscape here has significantly improved despite some challenges. And it will continue to drastically change now that President Duterte has set the good mood for peaceful and economically-developed Mindanao with the peace agreement with the MILF and the establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region,” Eleazar said in a copy of his speech during his visit at the headquarters of the Zamboanga Peninsula Regional Police Office on Jan. 28.

The practice of sending erring cops to Mindanao is now being addressed by the PNP leadership through its internal cleansing program.

“With the aggressive internal cleansing initiated by our Chief PNP, Gen. Archie Francisco Gamboa, for instance, the PNP leadership is making sure that if you commit offenses, you have nowhere else to go, but be meted out with appropriate punishments as quickly as possible. So the challenge now is to fill Mindanao with both the toughest and the brightest policemen in order to sustain what the President has started to achieve a long-overdue Filipino dream of peaceful and progressive Mindanao,” he added.

One of the major reasons for assigning police scalawags to Mindanao, he said, is for them to prove their toughness there.

He added that over the years, the central and western parts of Mindanao, including Sulu and Basilan provinces, are considered as the ‘hardship posts”  for policemen, soldiers and other law enforcement operatives due to the presence of armed men.

Eleazar, however, clarified that Mindanao became an integral part of the good peace and order strategies of the police and military.

“It is here in Mindanao where some of our policemen were able to show the real meaning of courage, it is here in Mindanao where excellence in law enforcement was tried and tested, and it is here in Mindanao where police heroes were made.”