Only 2,070 out of 12,631 examinees passed the Philippine National Police (PNP) entrance exam administered by the National Police Commission (Napolcom) on April 27.
In a statement Friday, Napolcom Vice Chair and Executive Officer Eduardo Escueta said 16.39 percent of the takers passed the battery of tests, a requirement for the entry-level rank of Police Officer 1.
The passing rate was lower compared to the results of the previous test held by Napolcom in October 2013, where 2,560 out of the 13,500 examinees, or 18.96 percent, made the cut.
The PNP entrance exams have a yearly average passing rate of 20 percent, the commission said. PNP applicants are gauged in four areas: General information, quantitative reasoning, logical reasoning, and verbal reasoning.
According to the Napolcom public information office, examinees in the past few years usually score the lowest in verbal reasoning, which is also a measure of their proficiency in English grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension.
In May, the Napolcom announced that the PNP planned to recruit 13,000 personnel, with 9,200 slots open for PO1s in the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) alone.
The capital currently has around 18,000 PNP personnel, for a 1:600 police-civilian ratio, which is short of the ideal 1:500, NCRPO spokesperson Supt. Robert Domingo said in an earlier interview.