Deadline to settle cases: pro-6 dismisses 4 Western Visayas cops

ILOILO CITY , Philippines  — In time of the January 31 deadline for the police regional offices nationwide to resolve all pending cases against policemen, the Police Regional Office-6 had approved the dismissal of four policemen from the service.

The four policemen, who underwent a month-long marathon hearing of their pending administrative cases, were PO2 Dennis Belandres, PO1 Neuton Guinson, PO3 Pedro Brillantes, and PO2 Ernie Arorong.

PRO-6 director, Chief Supt. Cipriano Querol, Jr., said that Belandres and Guinson were both charged for serious neglect of duty for their absences without official leave (AWOL) while Brillantes and Arorong were charged for grave misconduct.

"They still could appeal the decision, though," Querol said, adding that the four were among the 52 policemen in the region who have pending cases for various administrative offenses.

As of yesterday morning, Querol said there were only three cases to be resolved and, besides the four dismissed policemen, several others were meted with 60-day suspension and the rest were exonerated.

In October last year, Regional Legal Service head, Supt. Aaron Lirazan, said there were 87 pending cases under his office, and this was trimmed down to 52 at the start of this year.

 "We are assuring the public that the PNP does not and will not tolerate such serious violation of policy. We will utilize all resources to stop these breaches of discipline and take actions against personnel committing infractions," said Querol.

In coordination with prosecutors, arrested personnel, facing administrative and criminal charges, shall be committed to city and municipal jails and treated as ordinary criminals, he said.

The system for the expeditious resolution of the administrative cases was strengthened to remove undesirables from the police organization through zero-backlog of administrative cases, with January 31, 2011 as the imposed deadline for all cases to be resolved.

The National Police Commission is also carrying out a similar zero-backlog of cases program.