PNP welcomes 150 women in its ranks

FALL IN | New female PNP recruits scramble to assemble before being inducted to the police force on Friday. (Photo from the Philippine National Police)

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Police welcomed to its ranks on Friday 150 women in its bid to increase the number of female law enforcers in the male-dominated police force.

Lt. Gen. Rhodel Sermonia, the focal person for the PNP’s gender and development program, inducted the 150 newly appointed patrolwomen during a ceremony at the PNP’s Camp Crame headquarters in Quezon City.

In recent years, the PNP has increased its engagements with the Philippine Commission on Women to boost its gender mainstreaming, especially by increasing the number of its female police officers among its ranks, but the police force has a long way to go.

According to PNP data from 2021, policewomen continue to be outnumbered by male counterparts across all ranks.

There are only 37,157 policewomen, or 17.94 percent of the PNP’s strength of 169,955, compared to men who comprise 82.06 percent.

Over the past 31 years since the PNP was established in 1991, there have only been six female generals, with the latest being Ma. Asuncion Placino in 2019. Other previous female generals were Yolanda Tanigue, Lorlie Arroyo, Angelina Vidal, Liza Sabong and Lina Sarmiento, who was the only female general to reach the two-star rank in 2012.

The PNP has also made several other tokens of gender mainstreaming, but they remain few and far between.

In September 2019, the PNP introduced the first all-women police station in Maria town, Siquijor province. By the following year, all the personnel of the police community precinct of Bonifacio Global City in Taguig were policewomen.

In 2019, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would have enhanced gender mainstreaming by increasing to 20 percent the quota for female police officers, but even with that meager number, the Senate has yet to pass its own version of the bill.

Had it become a law, it would have amended the PNP Reform and Reorganization Act of 1998, that reserves for women only 10 percent of all new slots for police recruits.

Even then, the PNP is still ahead of the curve among the country’s security forces, and, at least for this year, they have 150 more females in the force.

The recruits will be sent to Laguna province for the mandatory six-month basic training at the National Police Training Institute in Camp Vicente Lim in Calamba City.

After the six-month Public Safety Basic Recruit Course and another six-month Public Safety Field Training Program, the new policewomen will be assigned to the different Regional Police Community Affairs and Development Units across the country to strengthen police relations with their communities.

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