PNP inspectors find local station ‘gone to the dogs’

MANILA, Philippines — A group of internal affairs officers from the Philippine National Police was shocked to find dog turd among other unsightly scenes inside a police station in Mandaue City in Cebu during a surprise inspection last weekend.

The team from the regional PNP Internal Affairs Services (IAS) was appalled to learn that only the station’s deputy commander and three other officers, or barely 10 percent of the 45 personnel assigned to the city’s Police Station 1 were present.

This prompted PNP chief Guillermo Eleazar on Wednesday to issue a warning to all police commanders to keep their offices clean or face sanctions.

He reminded all policemen to strictly abide by the PNP’s intensified cleanliness policy (ICP), which also covers the workplace.

Public image

Instead of worrying about being caught violating the ICP, his flagship program, police commanders should be more concerned about how the public would view them.

“It’s more important to keep our stations neat and orderly with a sufficient number of policemen so it wouldn’t be embarrassing and the public would not hesitate to approach us,” Eleazar said in a statement.

When members of the IAS inspection team visited the station at 2 p.m. last Saturday, they saw clothes hung to dry inside the office, an empty bottle of an alcoholic drink, and improperly labeled garbage bins. The canine excrement completed the squalid scene.

The inspectors also saw that the desk officer on duty wasn’t properly wearing his face mask and had no face shield on.

The deputy station commander was stunned by the unexpected visit and could not tell the team how many officers were at the station at the time.

The untidy and grossly undermanned police station is located at the Mandaue City Sports and Cultural Complex along a busy road.

Earning respect

“How will we earn the public’s respect if the police station they go to is like that? Dirty and very much undermanned. How can we serve the public when we cannot even keep our station orderly?” Eleazar said in his statement.

He noted that the ICP includes the workplace because the state of police precincts and stations are a reflection of the type of officers assigned to them.

“Due process will be observed in the case of that Mandaue City police station and we will wait for the explanation of the station commander why these violations of the ICP were committed,” the PNP chief said.

When Eleazar assumed the PNP’s top post, he instituted the ICP as his flagship program which he based on the Broken Windows Theory in law enforcement where small problems must be fixed immediately before they got bigger.

Eleazar said that since the ICP was established, there have been 378 sanctioned policemen, 78 of whom were dismissed from the service and 202 suspended.