MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE) Philippine National Police Chief Director General Jesus Verzosa suspended foreign travel by all officials effective Thursday pending results of an investigation into the controversy surrounding the multimillion contingency fund found in possession of a retired officer in Russia, a spokesman said.
Chief Superintendent Nicanor Bartolome, PNP spokesman, added that those whose travel applications had been granted would be affected by the suspension.
There are some whose travel applications have been previously approved...they will be suspended pending the review of the different policies. Once the review has been concluded then we will issue another update, he said.
Bartolome said this was one way of improving and reviewing the existing policies of the PNP on foreign trips.
This is one way of improving the system we have been using over the past years. We should be aware that whenever there are some questions being posed into the systems and policies of any organization, reviews are usually undertaken either to correct if there are some items to be corrected or improve our system, Bartolome said.
Verzosa's directive came days after retired director for comptrollership Eliseo dela Paz and his wife were held in a Moscow airport for possession of euros equivalent to P6.93 million, far exceeding the allowable limit set by the Philippine Embassy.
Verzosa's wife, Cynthia, was with the eight-man PNP delegation that went to the 77th Interpol Assembly in the Russian city of St. Petersburg.
Verzosa also ordered the creation of an investigating panel although he did not name its members, Bartolome said.
At the same time, Bartolome justified the huge amount of money brought by Dela Paz, saying this was needed for unplanned expenses.
Yung [The] contingency by itself, by definition, is for unplanned activities. Yung biglang may pangangailangan ng nangyari [It is for emergencies]. Kaya nga contingency di ba [Thats why its called contingency, right]? Hindi ito kasama duon sa [This is not part of the] approved na mga expenditures. Hiwalay ito [This is separate]. At ibabalik naman ito kapag hindi nagastos [And this will be returned if it wont be spent], he said.
Bartolome cited an instance where a PNP officer was hospitalized during one foreign trip and had no money with him.
You know, an incident happened involving one of our policemen who was abroad and he got sick and was hospitalized. He did not have any contingency fund. What he used was his own money and his bill turned out to be expensive simply because there was no contingency. And we do not want this to happen to our very senior officers, in particular. That is why there is what we call a contingency fund, Bartolome said in Filipino.
But Bartolome added that the entire contingency fund for Russia was not spent.
Let it be clear that not all of these contingency funds had been spent. Kaya nga hihintayin natin si Dela Paz para malaman natin kung magkano ang nagastos, magkano ba ang liliquidate niya, at ipapaliwanag lahat yan pagbalik niya [This is why we are going to wait for Dela Paz so that we will know how much he spent, how much he will liquidate, and he will explain all that when he returns,], Bartolome said.
He also stressed that although Verzosa's wife served as the PNP chief's proxy during the event, her travel expenses were not shouldered by the PNP.
All [travel expenses of the] spouses were shouldered by themselves. No PNP money was involved. Yung pondo natin ay para lang sa [Our funds are only for] PNP personnel, Bartolome said.
