GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews/14 Jan) – Police officials here have launched a revamp of its personnel assigned at the city’s eight police stations following complaints of supposed inefficient services and the involvement of several policemen in alleged irregularities.
Senior Supt. Cedric Train, city police director, said Friday they started reassigning some of their rank-and-file personnel to further help improve their operations and the delivery of their mandated functions.
He said they are also studying a reshuffle of the eight police station chiefs to complement their ongoing reorganization.
Train said the reshuffle covers police station chiefs who have served their current assignments for more than one year.
He said stations chiefs who have served for less than a year but were previously assigned at the same police station while they were still non-commissioned officers will also be reassigned.
“This is a routine administrative revamp and we deemed it necessary to improve the performance of our police stations and provide leadership options to deserving police officers,” Train said.
But the police official admitted that the revamp was also recommended by Mayor Darlene Antonino-Custodio in response to rising complaints against some policemen. These include the supposed inaction of some policemen to complaints from local residents and the involvement of some personnel to some irregular activities.
The city police’s Personnel and Human Resource and Development Division (PHRDD) relieved earlier this week city hall police detachment head SPO4 Romulo Villarta following his involvement in the controversial tampering of the license plates of a local government-owned vehicle.
The erring police officer was reassigned at the PHRDD pending the ongoing investigation of the case.
On Wednesday, Train directed the relief of at least three policemen manning a detachment at the city’s central public market for failing to resolve the rising theft and robbery cases in their assigned area.
He reassigned PO3 Ricky Peturio to police station number 02 while SPO2 Antonio Bejarin and PO1 Rolando Cansi were moved to the city police headquarters pending an internal investigation on the matter. (Allen V. Estabillo / MindaNews)