DILG chief warns cops moonlighting as escorts for Pogo execs

MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. (right) stresses a point to Commission on Elections Chair George Garcia during a program in Quezon City on Wednesday.  —GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. has warned that active police officers found moonlighting as escorts of big bosses of Philippine offshore gaming operator (Pogo) firms would be dismissed from the service.

“If there are policemen providing escorts to Pogo operators, that is completely unauthorized and we will make sure that the PNP-IAS (Philippine National Police-Internal Affairs Service) will look into these reports,” Abalos told reporters on Wednesday in Camp Crame.

He said he had ordered the PNP as early as last year that police personnel should refrain from providing escorts to individuals behind Pogos, stressing that they had more important matters to attend to.

“We even have a shortage of police officers, and they (Pogos) want police security? We need our police for important matters, including the coming barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections,” the chief of the Department of the Interior and Local Government said.

READ: Abalos says all police escorts assigned to Pogo workers recalled already

“That (moonlighting as escorts for Pogos) is illegal. If there are, we will make sure they will be dismissed,” he said.

Former Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who also served as former PNP chief, said the PNP should look into reports that some policemen are moonlighting as escorts of Chinese Pogo operators.

“This may explain why even during office hours, too many luxury vehicles zigzag through heavy traffic while motorcycle cops push motorists away to clear their passage. Shameless!” Lacson posted on Wednesday on X (formerly Twitter).

Accountability

In a press briefing in Camp Crame, PNP spokesperson Col. Jean Fajardo said the PNP-Highway Patrol Group (HPG) was currently looking into the allegations.

“The HPG committed that they will submit an official report on their investigation if there are indeed HPG personnel who are providing security to Pogo personnel. They will be made accountable,” she added.

Police officers on active duty are prohibited from providing security to private individuals without proper authority from the concerned office. The antigraft and corrupt practices law also prohibits government employees from owning companies and receiving double compensation.

In 2016, then acting PNP chief Lt. Gen. Archie Gamboa prohibited PNP personnel, especially higher ranking officers, from playing golf on weekdays. This was after he received reports that some police officers were employed as part-time security escorts of unscrupulous businessmen and personalities who play golf.

In 2013, then PNP chief Director General Alan Purisima also ordered a stricter implementation on the ban of police officers to work on the side as security escorts for private individuals in the wake of the Atimonan, Quezon shooting.

Twelve people, including suspected drug lord Vic Siman, were killed in what the police respondents called a legitimate operation then but was declared a rub out by the National Bureau of Investigation.