DILG, UP drafting proposal to reduce 133 police generals to only 25

DILG Sec. Juanito Victor Remulla —Niño Jesus Orbeta

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) is working with the University of the Philippines (UP) on a recommendation to trim down to just 25 of the 133 generals in the Philippine National Police.

Interior Secretary Juanito Victor “Jonvic” Remulla, who earlier said that reforming the national police force was a priority, stressed on Tuesday the need to address “redundancies” in the PNP’s “top-heavy” hierarchy to make it more efficient.

The President, Remulla reported in a press briefing at Malacañang, was “very accepting” of the possible recommendations to be finalized by the DILG within four months.

READ: Jonvic Remulla takes oath before Marcos as new DILG chief

“We’re working together with the UP College of Public Administration to get complete details on how we can reform the PNP’s very top-heavy structure. I think we have 133 generals and I want to whittle that down to 25 so that the organization is more flat,” Remulla said.

“It’s the plan; it’s one of my recommendations to flatten the organization,” he added.

Remulla pointed out that there were a lot of police generals without commands or groups to supervise.

“We have Area Police Commands that do not have actual personnel under them. So we have many areas that have redundancies that need to be trimmed down. It’s a law that needs to be revisited, so those are the things that we will examine,” Remulla said, referring to Republic Act No. 6975 that created the PNP under the DILG.

He noted that under civil service rules, police generals were qualified to be promoted every three years, resulting in many of them ending up without a command to supervise.

“We want to change a lot of that, to make it five years so that the rate of promotions is slower,” Remulla said.

As for current police generals, they would be allowed to remain in the service until their retirement at 56 years old, he added.

The DILG chief, who assumed office two weeks ago, expressed optimism that the proposal would not demoralize key senior police officials.

“I don’t think so. They’re also soldiers. They follow orders. It’s recommendatory so far so we’ll see,” Remulla said.