THE NEW CHIEF: Maj. Gen. Debold Sinas, director of the National Capital Region Police Office, is on his way to the highest post in the police force as next chief PNP. (File Photo from NCRPO)
MANILA, Philippines — Back in May when quarantine level was at its peak, Maj. Gen. Debold Sinas was heavily criticized for the “mañanita” dawn serenade held for his 55th birthday at the headquarters of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) in Taguig City.
Six months later, he was officially named as the new chief of the national police force.
The announcement was made by presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Monday, November 6, ending weeks of suspicion on who would be the next leader of the 200,000-strong Philippine National Police (PNP).
Sinas will replace Gen. Camilo Cascolan as PNP’s top boss. The latter is set to hang his police uniform on Tuesday, November 10, when he turns 56–the mandatory retirement age for military and uniformed personnel in the country.
The appointment of Sinas came as a surprise as there were other police officials with higher ranks and positions at the PNP who could have bagged the highly-coveted post in the police force.
Based on the hierarchy, Cascolan is followed by Deputy Chief for Administration Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar as the second-in-command official, Deputy Chief for Operations Lt. Gen. Cesar Binag as the third-in-command, and Chief of the Directorial Staff Maj. Gen. Joselito Vera Cruz as the fourth-in-command.
However, under the present rules, the President can still choose any police official bearing the rank of no less than a brigadier general, or one-star rank, as PNP chief.
Sinas, Eleazar, Binag, and Vera Cruz are all “mistahs” (batch mates) at the Philippine Military Academy Hinirang Class of 1987.
INQUIRER.net compiles a backgrounder of the man handpicked by President Rodrigo Duterte to lead the PNP in implementing his centerpiece campaign against illegal drugs—criticized by some groups for alleged human rights abuses—and criminality in the next months of his leadership.
Mañanita, ‘harassment’ to family in Taguig
Following the mañanita controversy, Sinas and 18 other police officers were charged with violating the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act and a Taguig City ordinance, which requires the wearing of face mask and physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. He and the other officers were also slapped with administrative charges by the PNP Internal Affairs Service.
The mañanita was held for his birthday on May 8 at the NCRPO headquarters in Taguig City, when the enhanced community quarantine that banned mass gathering was still being imposed in the entire Luzon.
Photos of the celebration were initially posted by the NCRPO on its Facebook page but were later taken down following the widespread backlash.
Sinas, who retained his post, later apologized for causing “anxiety to the public” and said he never intended to break quarantine protocols.
Days after his birthday, he also said he had already moved on from the issue and hoped his critics would do the same.
At the height of the controversy, Duterte himself said he will not order Sinas to be relieved, calling the latter an “honest” and “good officer.”
Aside from the mañanita issue, Sinas and some of his men were also accused of harassing a family in seeking their eviction from an old police compound in Taguig City in July. Sinas denied the alleged harassment and explained that the concerned area is part of the Southern Police District’s property.
‘Red teams,’ other programs
Sinas was appointed NCRPO director in October 2019, a post that earned him his second star as police general. Since Metro Manila has the highest number of population among the regions in the country, the post of an NCRPO director is considered crucial and is a good spot for later earning the post of PNP chief.
In that same month, Sinas ordered the deployment of “red teams” to go after police officers playing golf during weekdays, drinking in nightclubs, and sleeping while on duty.
The red teams were initially composed of police officers from Central Visayas, where he previously served as regional police director, to avoid familiarity by policemen who will be caught violating rules.
The term “red team” was coined after police inspection teams of the same name that make rounds during big events. There is also another group called the blue team, which guards the vicinity of venues.
It was also during the tenure of Sinas when the NCRPO launched in January a weight-loss program where all obese cops in the metropolis were ordered to participate. Sinas himself led the NCRPO personnel in this initiative.
Aside from these programs, the NCRPO under the leadership of Sinas likewise fast-tracked seminars on cultural sensitivity for its personnel, in consonance to similar trainings he initiated when he was assigned at the then Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, now the Bangsamoro region, as well as in the Zamboanga Peninsula, and in Central Visayas.
The NCRPO, through the Tactical Motorcycle Riding Unit (TMRU) deployed at crime-prone areas, also later conducted “more aggressive and sustained” police operations to arrest motorcycle-riding criminals and implement heightened security measures within the capital region.
‘Anti-media policies’
Shortly after assuming his post in the Metro Manila police, Sinas was reported to have told members of the NCRPO Press Corps to pack up from their office in Police Station 10 in Kamuning, Quezon City—a move that Ang Probinsyano Rep. Ronnie Ong called a “disrespect” to members of the press.
Sinas, however, denied he was against the media.
“Hindi po ako (I’m not) anti-media. I have never been and I never will be,” he earlier said in a television interview.
He explained he needed to use the office in Police Station 10 for his regular press briefings every Tuesday and Friday and that he intended to provide the press corps another office at the NCRPO headquarters.
He even said he is ready to step down if then PNP chief and now retired Gen. Archie Gamboa asked him to do so over his supposed anti-media policies.
When he was new in the position, Sinas also spoke with members of the press and laid out guidelines for media interviews, saying he prefers group interviews instead of individual ones.
But outside his press briefings, Sinas is not as accessible to reporters as compared to his predecessors at the NCRPO.
In December 2019, the National Press Club (NPC) also slammed Sinas for rejecting an interview by allegedly blocking a female journalist’s face with his hands. A statement from NCRPO said that it was the reporter who “butted in” during Sinas’ conversation with Msgr. Hernando Coronel, parish priest of Quiapo, regarding the traslacion for the coming year.
‘Unsolved killings’ in Central Visayas
Before leading the Metro Manila police, Sinas, a native of Butuan City, served as the regional director of Police Regional Office-7 (Central Visayas) in Cebu City starting July 2018.
But in May this year, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) noted that the war on drugs in the region escalated when Sinas was its top police official.
Atty. Alvin Odron, director of the CHR in Central Visayas (CHR-7), was quoted as saying that Sinas’ stint in the region was marred by the rise of unsolved killings of individuals linked to the drug trade.
“He (Sinas) had a colorful stint here in the region. During his watch, the number of killings definitely increased,” Odron said.
“While we appreciate his relentless campaign against illegal drugs in Central Visayas, there were just so many killings under his watch as police director here,” CHR-7 chief investigator Leo Villarino added.
Sinas has denied the presence of a vigilante group and the allegations of extra-judicial killings in the region.
Support for female cops
When he was still PRO-7 director, Sinas supported the creation of the first-ever all-female police station in Maria, Siquijor, which he said shows the PNP’s support for women empowerment.
It was also under his leadership when the first female city police chief in Metro Manila, Police Col. Angela Rejano, was installed in Malabon City.
It was Rejano who conceptualized the first-ever police station run by an all-women force in Maria, Siquijor when she was chief of the Siquijor Police Provincial Office.
Sinas is set to retire from PNP on May 8, 2021 when he turns 56. This means he has six months to lead the police force in pushing for the major campaigns of President Rodrigo Duterte—the very person who gave him his latest post—against crime and illegal drugs.