PNP to use ‘unusable’ boats

As tropical Storm “Juaning” approached, the Philippine National Police (PNP) prepared to use the controversial rubber boats now the subject of a probe after they were found to have been bought with incompatible outboard motors.

PNP spokesperson Chief Supt. Agrimero Cruz Jr. on Tuesday said if it became necessary, the PNP Maritime Group would put the boats to use since “not all of them” were unusable and some could still be fitted with the right motors.

“We can still use those that have no defects. Not all of them are incompatible with the motors,” he said, without specifying how many.

But Cruz added that “as much as we can, we won’t use” the rubber boats in order not to compromise the investigation launched by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) into the alleged anomalous P131.5 million purchase.

“We will only use them when there is an urgent need,” Cruz told reporters.

He said the PNP Maritime Group currently had in its inventory “hundreds” of other rubber boats, mostly donated by private groups following the destructive Tropical Storm “Ondoy” that inundated Metro Manila in 2009.

The DILG revealed recently that at least 75 rubber boats bought by the PNP shortly after Ondoy had never been used because they ended up with the wrong type of engines.

Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo said the boats—along with the 93 outboard motors that would supposedly power them—were gathering dust at a garage in Parañaque City.

He said the boats required 40-horsepower engines, but what the PNP had were 60-horsepower units.

Robredo made the disclosure on the heels of another investigation involving other PNP assets, including two secondhand helicopters which were allegedly passed off as brand new and sold to the PNP in 2009.