16 cops, 20 others get traffic tickets

MANILA, Philippines — Thirty-six people, including 16 police officers, were issued citation tickets for allegedly violating traffic rules in police camps, the Integrity Monitoring and Enforcement Group (IMEG) reported on Friday.

IMEG director Brig. Gen. Warren de Leon said the violators were caught when they implemented lockdowns in nine camps of the Philippine National Police (PNP) nationwide.

The IMEG conducted the lockdowns in coordination with the Highway Patrol Group from Jan. 27 to 31. The lockdowns involved 2,213 vehicles and motorcycles in various camps in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

“Our goal for conducting this series of camp lockdowns is to apprehend unscrupulous PNP personnel using unregistered, recovered, impounded and stolen motor vehicles and motorcycles,” De Leon said in a statement.

Thirty-six people ended up with citation tickets. Of the number, 16 were police officers while the rest were civilians and employees from government agencies.

De Leon said among the violations committed by the PNP personnel were having expired registrations or driving vehicles with no or improvised license plates.

The other violators also used vehicles with improvised license plates.

De Leon said these surprise inspections would instill discipline within their ranks as part of the PNP’s internal cleansing program.