New policemen asked: 'Learn from maltreatment issue'

CEBU, Philippines - Members of the 32nd batch of police recruits were reminded to refrain from imitating the three inspectors earlier accused of maltreating twelve police recruits earlier.

In his speech as guest speaker of the graduation ceremony, Deputy Chief for Administration Chief Supt. Samuel Yordan asked the 167 graduates who are members of “Class Mat-an” to stop the maltreatment that they have allegedly experienced during their training period.

Yordan said that some of the graduates will come back and become instructors someday and should not let the new recruits experience what they went through.

“Time will come some of you will come back to this ground and act as instructors to the new recruits. The experiences that they have should be a lesson for them na hindi nila ipa-experience sa next na nilang i-handle and one of those is maltreatment.” Yordan said.

Yordan pointed out that maltreatment is not healthy for their organization and is part of their campaign to stop the alleged maltreatment which reportedly happened to the PNP recruits.

PO2 Janelle Junco, a member of the said batch told reporters she is happy that she surpassed the challenges and trainings that they experienced no matter how hard.

When asked about the alleged maltreatment, she merely pointed out that the National Police Commission-7 is already handling the investigation.

“Ato na lang na nga isalig sa Napolcom kay naa na man nila ang kaso gud. (Let’s just leave it up to the Napolcom because they are now handling the case),” Junco said.

Last July, twelve police officers who were undergoing an anti-insurgency course in Sibonga complained to Napolcom that three training instructors maltreated them.

Seven of the complainants, all policewomen, reported the incident to the Sibonga Police Station last July 13 at 8:45 p.m. They were being trained in the Camp Ceferino Genovia in Barangay Bahay of the said town and accused the instructors of inflicting bodily harm on them.

— (FREEMAN)