Interim Pasay police cleans up offices

The Interim Pasay City police force has started to clean-up the city police – not of scalawags and hoodlums but of the stench, dirt and cockroaches that have long pestered their predecessors.

"Nakakalungkot (It’s very sad.)," interim police chief Senior Superintendent Oscar Catalan said yesterday of the sorry state of the offices.

Catalan was dismayed when he saw the police headquarters’ parking space – or lack of it – and the stinking Station Intelligence Division (SID), both located within the city hall compounds.

"Of course, how an office looks like affects the work of the people. It should be conducive for work," Catalan said.

Yesterday morning, Chief Inspector Aner Tadeos, SID chief, led his men in cleaning up the dilapidated office behind the city hall. The investigators sprayed the rooms and detention cells with insect repellant and "summarily executed" scores of cockroaches in three hours. They also swept the floors and dusted the tables.

The relieved Pasay investigators, who are now on their first day of re-training at the Subic Bay Freeport, have long complained of the dismal condition of the SID office, which reeks of a stench coming from an overflowing septic tank from the city jail. The SID and police clearance offices are located at the ground floor of the city jail. One has to cross wooden planks to get to the SID office, which also does not have a door.

Catalan said he has urged his men to clean up their own offices and provide their own office supplies. "We’ll be here for only 20 days anyway. I just asked them to sacrifice a bit." Catalan himself is having the tiles of his office, previously occupied by relieved police chief Supt. Eduardo de la Cerna, changed.

Catalan admitted he was unaware of the arrangement between the city government and the Pasay police under De la Cerna.

But in an interview Monday, Pasay City Mayor Wenceslao "Peewee" Trinidad said improving the "working conditions" of the policemen is the responsibility of the PNP headquarters and not of the LGUs.

Unlike the Makati City government, which had its police headquarters renovated and fully refurbished, Trinidad said Pasay could not simply afford to do the same. "They have a P4-billion budget to work with," he said.

Trinidad admitted that improvements for the working areas and buildings of the Pasay police force has not been included in the city’s P1.1 billion budget for 2002. Nevertheless, the city government has given its policemen service firearms, 17 motorcycle units, and shouldered their gasoline expenses for the past years. — Nikko Dizon