Quezon shooting a blessing–Purisima

PNP Director General Alan Purisima. Inquirer/RAFFY LERMA

The new Chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) is not losing sleep over the controversies plaguing the 148,000-strong force.

In fact, Director General Alan Purisima on Monday said he actually considered the criticism generated by the Atimonan, Quezon, shooting incident “a blessing” as it prompted a review of various police protocols and policies.

“Much as the Atimonan incident was indeed tragic… life moves on and the PNP must move on with it,” said Purisima during the weekly news forum at Camp Crame.

He said the PNP would just wait for the conclusion of the probe being conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) into the incident.

“The only clear thing right now from the unfortunate incident is that there are a few questionable elements in the PNP and we are getting rid of these bad elements. We will not hesitate to get rid of those who do not deserve to wear the badge of honor of a police officer,” Purisima said.

To launch improvements in the PNP, Purisima said he had ordered the dismantling of the counter-intelligence division of the Intelligence Group (IG), the PNP’s main intelligence unit.

Purisima expressed disappointment over the failure of the agents of the IG’s counter-intelligence division to detect the police operation that Supt. Hansel Marantan had allegedly hatched against Victor Siman, the alleged operator of the illegal numbers game “jueteng,” who was among the 13 men killed in Atimonan.