PNP taps fitness vlogger to lead 93-day weight loss program
Fitness vlogger Rendon Labador speaks to reporters in Camp Crame on Thursday, June 19, 2025, ahead of launching a 93-day weight loss program with the Philippine National Police Community Affairs and Development Group (PNP PCADG). (Photo by Jason Sigales/INQUIRER.net)
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Police (PNP) tapped fitness vlogger Rendon Labador to lead a 93-day weight loss program for police officers.
The program is an initiative of the Police Community Affairs and Development Group (PCADG), and comes after a directive from PNP chief Gen. Nicolas Torre III to strictly observe the weight requirements for police personnel.
“We will monitor them. We will take note of their weights. We will work out at the same time, and we will monitor them weekly,” Labador said in an interview with reporters in Camp Crame on Thursday.
“Just call me the national coach of the police,” he added.
Labador detailed that PCADG Director Brig Gen. Marvin Saro asked him to lead the program, and that he agreed to do it free of charge, bringing along fellow coaches and nutritionists.
The fitness vlogger further shared part of his motivation for accepting the collaboration was that his father was also a police officer.
According to Labador, an initial 150 police officers will participate in the program to be launched in Camp Crame on Wednesday afternoon.
“A fit police officer has more credibility and more trustworthy. We are public servants, so we show that in our discipline, our credibility. Our physical appearance is part of what strengthens that.”
READ: Torre orders cops to have physical fitness program, ‘no mercy’ for testers
Torre previously reiterated a provision in Republic Act 6975, the law reorganizing the PNP as an attached agency of the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
Section 30, Paragraph I of the law states that a person “must [weigh] not more or less than five kilograms of the standard weight corresponding to his or her height, age and sex” to be appointed as a member or officer of the PNP.
As part of the directive, last Friday, Torre said he ordered the agency’s mobile force personnel to undergo a physical fitness program of their choice.
Earlier in June, PNP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Jean Fajardo said it was also part of Torre’s directives that officers who fail the agency’s physical fitness test twice will undergo retraining and may not be eligible for promotion.
Health service
The PNP Health Service and its regional offices are planning to conduct regular assessments to see whether police officers are making progress in losing weight, according to Fajardo in a phone interview with reporters on Thursday.
“In engaging in exercise, changing one’s discipline with food, you don’t need to wait one month. Our monitoring here will be progressive,” she said.
READ: PNP to consider bone structure in enforcing weight limit rule – Torre
Labador also touched on the topic of nutrition.
“The fastest way to reduce stomach size is, first and foremost, for all our police officers to reduce the amount of rice they eat,” he said.
“Whatever workout we do, if you don’t pair it up with the right nutrition, whatever we do will be for nothing. So, my first suggestion for all police officers, reduce your rice intake.”
