Sen. Ralph Recto. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
If the Philippine National Police (PNP) was able to ask for funds to buy 48 bomb-sniffing dogs worth P500,000 each, then it should also request budget for the acquisition of body cameras for its operatives.
Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto pointed this out amid calls for the police to use body cameras during drug raids for transparency and accountability in the government’s bloody drug war.
Recto, in a statement on Friday, debunked PNP’s claims that it could not afford to buy body- and car-mounted cameras this year.
The PNP had in fact received P1.9 billion from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) last August 10 for the purchase of various equipment, said the senator.
The PNP has been given P5.6 billion police modernization fund in the 2017 national budget.
“The Special Allotment Release Order (Saro) issued by the DBM for the procurement of P1.9 billion worth of machine guns, boats, motorcycles, anti-riot gear, body vests and ‘explosive detection dogs’ identified the funding source as the Unprogrammed Appropriations of the General Appropriations Act for 2017,” Recto explained.
“If the PNP share of the 2017 Unprogrammed Appropriations is P5.634 billion, then it leaves a balance of P3.732 billion, enough to buy a sizeable quantity of body cams and dashboard cameras for police cruisers,” he said.
“Hindi na kailangan maghintay sa susunod na taon. Mayroon nang mapagkukuhanan ngayon (They don’t have to wait for next year. They have funds now),” Recto said.
READ: Senator wants cops to wear body cameras during drug raids
The senator said the PNP should have included the cameras in the wish list it sent to the DBM in two letters dated July 13 and 24 this year.
“By that time, mayroon nang clamor for body cams, sana isinama na nila. Pero mayroon pa namang natitirang pondo (By that time, there was already a clamor for body cams, they should have included these in their request. But there is still remaining budget),” Recto said.
More lawmakers have called for the PNP’s deployment of body cameras in anti-drug operations after several cases of police abuses were committed in the drug war, including the death of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos in a drug raid last Aug. 16. IDL