DILG Sec. Jonvic Remulla | PHOTO: Official Facebook page of the Office of the Chief PNP
MANILA, Philippines — Interior Secretary Juanito Victor “Jonvic” Remulla on Wednesday vowed to address the discrepancies in the delineation of function of Philippine National Police (PNP) generals.
Remulla made the pronouncement after noting certain “discrepancies” within the PNP due to the current number of generals. According to Remulla, there is no clear delineation of command or function within the PNP when an officer is promoted to general status.
“The difficult part [in the PNP] is that the lines and delineation of the functions of a general in the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) is very clear; [but] in terms of the PNP, there is a lot of improvements and identification to be done on what exactly their roles should be as they are promoted,” said Remulla during a Commission on Appointments session.
“And that will be addressed in the coming months and years as we go through this,” he added.
Remulla said the PNP currently has a total of 153 generals—a lot of which he noted to be “redundant.” He previously said he will trim the number to 25 but reconsidered upon talks with the current leadership of the PNP.
“We’ve had consultations, we’ve been talking to them and I think we can streamline this down to less than a 100, as of current,” he said.
READ: DILG, UP drafting proposal to reduce 133 police generals to only 25
With ongoing talks, Remulla said one of the DILG and PNP’s goals is to ensure that every general would have a command directly under them.
“With proper conversation and proper deliberation together in conjunction with the PNP and the national government, we should be able to make the responsibilities of generals clearer and delineate their areas of command much better,” said Remulla.
He also reiterated making promotion in the PNP be based on merit, need and function, rather than the present Civil Service rules which makes officers eligible every three years.