Purisima eyes disbanding PNP intelligence unit

Philippine National Police Deputy Director General Alan Purisima. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – Philippine National Police chief Alan Purisima said Friday that he was looking to replace the current Counter Intelligence unit of PNP’s Intelligence Group for having no substantial output.

“Looking at it now, we can see that the unit isn’t functioning properly that’s why we’re looking at disbanding that unit,” said Purisima in Filipino on radio.

He said a new staff would replace the previous ones who would probably be reassigned to a different department.

“They didn’t have any output . . . that’s why we’re going to disband them and replace it with a performing unit that can be depended on in situations like ths,” he said.

Meanwhile, in a separate interview, Chief Superintendent Generoso Cerbo Jr., PNP spokesman, said the change may have been decided on after the January6 shooting in Quezon where 13 persons were killed.

“It’s because he wasn’t satisfied with the work of the counter-intelligence unit of the Intelligence group,” Cerbo said.

He said the counter-intelligence unit was in charge of providing physical security to police camps; document security to official papers; and personnel security to monitor police officers tagged in illegal activities.

“This is also part of taking care of the integrity of our personnel,” Cerbo said.