Designate police director for P’sinan, mayors ask

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan, Philippines – The Pangasinan Mayors’ League will ask in a resolution Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Alan Purisima, Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas and President Aquino to appoint a police director for the province.

The position has remained vacant since Senior Superintendent Marlou Chan was relieved last Dec. 17 after a year of struggling with mayors and provincial officials opposing his leadership.

Dasol Mayor Noel Nacar, the league president, said there is a growing concern among the mayors of the province’s 44 towns and three cities that nobody is in charge of the provincial police command. 

“Pangasinan is one of the biggest provinces and yet it has no police director,” Nacar said in Filipino. “We don’t even know if we have an officer-in-charge.”

Officers of the mayors’ league aired their concern in a meeting on Wednesday, and would finalize their resolution on the matter next week.

“It does not matter who they are going to send here as our provincial director but what’s important is there is somebody in charge of the overall situation for the security of our towns and cities,” Nacar said. 

Sixth district Board Member Alfonso Bince Jr., in a privilege speech last Monday, said, “Imagine a first-class province with almost three million population but has no provincial police director.” 

“The non-designation of a (provincial police) director has effectively circumvented and castrated the provision of Section 51 of Republic Act 6975, known as the DILG Act of 1990,” Bince said. 

Under this provision, the provincial governor shall choose from a list of three eligible aspirants recommended by the regional police director as police director of a province, he said. 

“Why don’t you give the biggest province of Pangasinan a regular provincial director?” Bince asked Roxas and Purisima, who himself was once a police director of Pangasinan.