Cardinal Vidal to head NAPOLCOM bids and awards committee

Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal will head the National Police Commission Bids and Awards Committee to make sure all transactions are transparent.

NAPOLCOM-7 director Bernardo Calibo, who recently paid a courtesy call on Vidal, said he offered the cardinal to be his alter ego in the bids and awards committee as he has been institutionalizing a procurement system to prevent corruption.

Calibo said Vidal hesitated at first because other agencies made similar offers to him before only for him to learn that the bids and awards were already fixed, making his role a mere embellishment.

“In this way, the NAPOLCOM Region 7 procurement system will be more transparent than Transparency International.  For who can be more transparent than Cardinal Vidal?” Calibo said.

Supt. Jesus Manubay, the newly installed chief of the Traffic Management Group -7, recently revealed to Calibo his program for the region especially on the proliferation of the sale of vehicles stolen from Luzon and Mindanao.

Last year, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-7 filed charges before the Ombudsman-Visayas against some police officials for graft, falsification of public documents, grave misconduct and dishonesty.

The TMG is a national support group of the police tasked to implement traffic rules and regulations and run after smuggled vehicles or those with irregular registration papers.  It also supervises the printing of PNP vehicle clearances in coordination with Land and Transportation Office.

The stolen cars were reportedly registered again as brand-new vehicles at the Land Transportation Office in Cebu after getting clearances from the RTMG and the PNP Regional Crime Lab.

Calibo told Manubay that he is closely monitoring the activities of the TMG-7 in light of numerous complaints of alleged extortion.   — Garry B. Lao/BRP