MANILA, Philippines — Physically fit police officers is a “win-win” for all except for criminals, Senator Panfilo Lacson said Tuesday.
Lacson issued the statement after Philippine National Police (PNP) officer-in-charge Lt. Gen. Archie Gamboa warned cops that they will be denied schooling for promotions if they do not comply with the fitness requirement.
“If we have policemen and policewomen who are physically and morally fit, everybody indeed wins. Only the bad guys will lose,” Lacson said in a statement.
Lacson, when he headed the PNP from 1999 to 2001, initiated the policy of requiring police officers to maintain a 34-inch waistline.”I would like to think the best legacy I left in the police institution was the discipline that I instilled in my policemen who I enjoined to stop huffing and puffing with big bulging tummies,” Lacson said.
“Instead, they maintained a maximum waistline of 34 inches so they would be trim and thin when they chased robbers and other criminals,” he added.
Lacson said police would also have the confidence to wear their uniforms once they trim their waistlines.
“For many pot-bellied police officers, their waistlines were reduced to a point that they became proud and confident of wearing their police uniforms once more,” he said.