PNP to sanction retired general, others behind paid ad on promotion complaints

SILANG, Cavite – Philippine National Police chief Director General Avelino Razon Jr. said yesterday that the PNP will sanction those behind a full page advertisement which condemned alleged inequity in the promotions and assignments in the police force.

Razon said they have identified retired general Rogelio Asignado, Philippine Public Safety College (PPSC) deputy chief for administration, as one of those behind the paid advertisement published last Monday in a newspaper.

He said the police organization would take restrictive measures, including dismissal from service, against those who failed to seek administrative remedies to their grievances.

“Being part of the government, he or they failed to observe administrative remedies,” said Razon in an interview after the graduation of PNPA Class 2008 here.

He stressed that he and Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno talked to Asignado before the start of the graduation rites yesterday morning, wherein President Arroyo was the guest of honor and speaker.

Razon said the former chief of the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) admitted that there were other PNPA alumni with him who placed the advertisement at a cost of over P100,000.

“He (Asignado) claims there are many of them, but could not give names who were with him. He did not even name politicians,” the PNP chief added.

Puno, Razon, and Asignado attended the almost two-hour PNPA commencement exercises.

Asignado even led the induction of the PNPA Alumni Association Inc., which was supposedly assigned to PNPAAAI president Senior Superintendent Cedrick Train.

Concerned alumni of the PNPA, in a whole page advertisement, appealed to President Arroyo, members of Congress, Puno, also the chairman of the National Police Commission, and the PNP leadership, to resolve issues like equity in promotion and assignment  of graduates of Philippine Military Academy (PMA), PNPA lateral entrants, and the rank and file.

In their appeal, police officials, who hid under the name of PNPA alumni, said that  “(There should be) consultation of PNPA alumni and others on important police matters as major stakeholders.”

“Since PNP policies are decided on at the directorial staff level or the SOPPB (Senior Officers’ Promotion and Placement Board), other stakeholders are seldom consulted even in decisions affecting themselves,” they claimed.

The statement also pointed out that among more than 10,000 police commissioned officers in the PNP, only a little more than 500 are graduates of PMA, yet they occupy most of the key positions in the PNP.

The group’s open letter came in support of the clamor of Senior Superintendent Joel Alvarez to address the apparent lack of a transparent, accountable, measurable, objective, and consistent system in the SOPPB, which handles the appointment of police officers in the PNP.

Alvarez had turned down his designation as police provincial director for Camarines Sur, saying his concern was not yet answered.  –With Michael Punongbayan