Senior Police Officer 2 Ricardo Pascua, the Quezon City policeman who refused to yield to President Benigno Aquino III’s convoy last week, has just joined the ranks of millions of jobless Filipinos.
Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo Wednesday ordered Pascua’s name dropped from the roster of the Philippine National Police (PNP) after a review of his career records showed that he had in fact been ordered dismissed twice by the People’s Law Enforcement Board (PLEB) in Quezon City.
In a statement, Robredo said that he had instructed PNP chief Director General Nicanor Bartolome to sign an order “officially dismissing” the erring policeman from the service after the National Police Commission (Napolcom) found out that Pascua was reinstated under questionable circumstances.
“[Pascua] cannot feign ignorance that he was dismissed twice … by two separate [PLEB] offices in Quezon City [after he] managed to allegedly ‘fix’ one [of the] cases but completely ignored the other,” Robredo said.
The interior secretary said that on Tuesday, Napolcom Commissioner Eduardo Escueta presided over a meeting of the body to look into the supposed loopholes and negligence in the issuance and implementation of dismissal orders for policemen.
Citing records of the Napolcom, Robredo said Pascua was first fired from the PNP on June 30, 2001, after he was found guilty of “robbery/extortion” by the PLEB District II-A office based on a complaint filed by Amalia Buenaventura-Peregrina.
He added that the policeman was again recommended for dismissal by the Quezon City PLEB District III on Dec. 10, 2002, based on a grave misconduct case filed by Siony V. Tabuac.
Said Robredo: “SPO2 Pascua later made an appeal for both cases before the Napolcom Regional Appellate Board, but [it] affirmed the PLEBs’ decisions.”
Pascua was allowed by the PNP to return to active service after he subsequently won a favorable decision in the case filed by Tabuac. However, the ruling in the complaint filed by Peregrina was upheld by Napolcom.