AT least eight officials of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and 20 rank-and-file policemen in Central Visayas were ordered relieved from their posts.
Senior Supt. Renato Dugan, chief of the Regional Personnel and Human Resource Development Division, said the order from the national police headquarters in Camp Crame did not say why these policemen had been dismissed from their current positions.
“I could not say whether or not this is still part of our internal cleansing because the order did not have any explanation,” Dugan said in an interview while refusing to give reporters a list of the newly relieved cops.
According to Dugan, it was the new protocol of the Police Regional Office (PRO-7) to no longer release the names of relieved policemen to the public while awaiting further directives from Camp Crame.
The 28 relieved cops were ordered to report to the Personnel Holding and Accounting Unit in Camp Crame.
Eight of them hold a rank of major (Chief Inspector) to colonel (Superintendent).
The order signed by Police Director Fernando Mendez of the Directorate for Personnel and Records Management was supposed to take effect last Oct. 21, Friday, but PRO-7 only received the directive three days later on the 24th.
The new relief orders bring to 123 the total number of policemen in Central Visayas relieved from their posts since July 1.
Although the reason for their relief was not stated in the orders, PNP chief Director General Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa had said that the ongoing revamp of police officials was due to reports that some of them were receiving money from illegal drug personalities.
In a visit to PRO-7 last July, Dela Rosa noted that there was a need to reassign some police officers in order to disrupt the illegal drugs operations in the different regions.
Earlier, Camp Crame ordered the relief of all 67 operatives of the Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (RAIDSOTF) and the Regional Special Operations Group (RSOG) in Central Visayas.
They were reassigned to rebel-infested areas in northern Luzon and Mindanao.
Camp Crame also relieved the directors of a number of police offices in the region including Senior Supt. Jose Macanas who was dismissed as head of the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) early this month after he was linked to reported drug lord Kerwin Espinosa.