College students to help cops with relief, rescue

The Philippine National Police (PNP) will recruit college students, particularly those planning to make a career of law enforcement, to help in disaster response.

PNP Director General Nicanor Bartolome said a Police Reserve Unit composed of college students taking up criminology would be created to assist in disaster rescue and relief missions.

“This is now on the drawing board. This will be activated as soon as we iron out some of the minor glitches,” Bartolome said.

He said unit members would be trained in basic law enforcement with emphasis on disaster response.

The recruits who will come from colleges and universities that offer a criminology course would be supervised by officers from the PNP provincial offices, he said.

The PNP earlier planned to create a special disaster response unit in every police station, but the proposal was dropped since police personnel already have their hands full with law enforcement functions.

Bartolome said that at present criminology students were made to render community service like street sweeping and greening programs.

Instead of sweeping, criminology students and other volunteer students will now undergo police-related training including disaster response, he said.

“We are still talking about the specific functions of this unit but the focus is on disaster response because this is safer for them and this is one of the main problems of our government right now,” the PNP chief said.