Senator Grace Poe. OSGP Communications Team
Senator Grace Poe is urging the Philippine National Police (PNP) to immediately appoint a “competent and independent” civilian head of its Internal Affairs Service (IAS).
Poe made the call amid allegations that police personnel were into illegal activities.
“It is high time that an independent and objective IAS should be put in place to effectively carry out its mandate in support of the renewed vigor of the PNP’s campaign to eradicate criminality by keeping the same within the bounds of the law,” she said in a statement on Tuesday.
The senator filed Senate Resolution 70 to look into the continued non-implementation of Republic Act No. 8551, or the PNP Reform and Reorganization Act of 1998, which mandates that the head of the IAS should be a civilian.
While she said she fully supported the anti-illegal drug campaign of the Duterte administration to get rid of scalawags in the police, Poe said appointing a civilian Inspector General as head of the IAS was needed “to proactively conduct inspections and audits on PNP personnel and units, investigate complaints and gather evidence in support of an open investigation, probe incidents where death, serious physical injury or any violation of human rights occurred.”
In the preceding Congress, Poe, who then headed the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs, filed Senate Bill No. 868, or the proposed PNP-IAS Reform Act of 2016. The measure sought to form an independent institutional watchdog for the police service.
“It is very challenging for the PNP-IAS to police its own ranks and conduct fair and impartial investigations if its head is among the active personnel of the PNP who may be blinded by camaraderie and seniority. We have already seen that in previous cases,” she said.
Poe noted that in the two hearings conducted by her committee in the previous Congress, it found that the IAS had limited authority. It could only make recommendations against erring PNP personnel, subject to review and approval of the PNP Chief. That situation, she said, led to inefficiencies in resolving administrative and criminal cases involving police officers.
The senator recalled President Rodrigo Duterte’s earlier pronouncement that he would not condone drug trafficking and illegal acts of police officers who destroy people’s lives./rga