PHL Public Safety College against transfer of police training control to PNP

From the Philippine News Agency (Oct 18): PHL Public Safety College against transfer of police training control to PNP

The Philippine Public Safety College (PPSC) on Tuesday gave the thumbs down to the transfer of the control of training criminology students to the Philippine National Police (PNP).

The college is responsible for the training, human resource development and continuing education of all personnel of the PNP, the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP).

In a joint public hearing in the Senate, PPSC President Ricardo de Leon said what needs to be addressed is the problem of mismatch. He also admitted that the institution is not giving criminology students the right curriculum.

The hearing was held after Senator Panfilo Lacson speculated that there must be "something wrong" with the PNP recruitment program amid the alleged involvement of more neophyte cops in the illegal drugs trade.

In a previous Senate hearing, Lacson asked PNP Chief Dir. Gen. Ronald dela Rosa why most of the PNP personnel suspected to be involved in the illegal drugs trade are the younger, new police officers.

Dela Rosa pointed out that the PNP is the only police agency in the world that does not train its own police officers since training is conducted by a separate agency, the PPSC.

The PNP chief meanwhile asked Lacson to recommend that control over training be returned to PNP.

”Police subculture”

Lacson pointed out that there are indeed gaps in recruitment and training but not so much in the academic aspect.

“When they (young cops) are fielded in field training exercise, they get exposed to non-commissioned officers of PNP who act as their supervisor. But if the people are with defective PNP, then that’s the exposure,” Lacson told reporters in an interview.

“Example, if recruit or trainee will be asked to extort money from a motorist or enter a bar… if that is the exposure they get from PO2, PO3, SPO1 that handles them, it’s important to select properly, establish who will take charge of supervising the trainees who will undergo field training exercises,” Lacson said.

Board of Criminology chairman Ramil Gabao meanwhile spoke of a police subculture that may be acceptable to them but not necessarily acceptable to the community.

“If they (new cops) believe it is okay for police officers to have free transport or free merienda (snacks) because of the certain value they have, then that is a kind of subculture not acceptable in the general community but probably in the culture in police service. That is the beginning of corruption of intellectual competence of the other,” Gabao said.

Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Undersecretary Catalino Uy for his part contradicted the assumption that the problem is in the recruitment process.

“Recruitment is the responsibility of PNP. Six months or one year of training won’t have a significant impact on their personality,” Uy said.

Senator Gringo Honasan asked de Leon if there is any form of performance auditing mechanism that could help track recruits. De Leon, however, said that they have no such mechanism.

In turn, Lacson encouraged the PPSC to allow recruits to be used as “guinea pigs” to be tracked from the time they are recruited to the time they are assigned in different fields.

”Is it because of the place of assignment? Environment or atmosphere? Maybe if there is a study like that, we can more or less identify the problem,” Lacson said.
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