PNP maintains 2 PCSO accounts: PNP Chief Bacalzo

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine National Police (PNP) maintains two active accounts from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), Chief Director General Raul Bacalzo said on Monday.

“We are still maintaining two accounts from the PCSO which pertains to support to the program management office which was granted in 2006, and also a special operations fund,” Bacalzo said. He revealed one account has about P2.5 million, while the other has around P370,000.

Bacalzo said donations from the PCSO were deposited as one account, so there were only six occasions that the PCSO donated funds to the PNP.

“As of today, we have six accounts support from the PCSO starting from different years from 1997 to 2008,” said Bacalzo. He said he has ordered the closure of four accounts on January of this year because it was already used.

He said the PNP did not receive funds from the PCSO in 2009.

He said the six accounts were used to support the Program Management Committee, the Police Community Relations Group, the operations and the financial assistance or endowment support for the purchase of medical equipment of the PNP.

He said they also received ambulances and a library from PCSO.

“I don’t see anything illegal from receiving support from the PCSO,” Bacalzo said. “In fact, we have the support given by the PCSO because most of the funds were used to buy PNP equipment,” he said.

He said he has ordered to return of unused funds from the PCSO to the Bureau of Treasury.