National Police chief General Camilo Pancratius Cascolan has ordered a new round of reorganization by designating new commanders of four of the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) integrated offices, which are equivalent to area commands in the military.
The reassignments involving commanders of four PNP-Directorate for Integrated Police Operations (DIPO), which according to PNP spokesman Col. Ysmael Yu, oversees operations of regional and provincial mobile forces, took effect on Monday while Cascolan is in Baguio City.
Named as new directors of DIPOs are Maj. Gen. Dionardo Carlos for the Visayas, Maj. Gen. Chiquito Malayo for Western Mindanao, Brig Gen. Manuel Abu for Southern Luzon and Brig. Gen. Ferdinand Daway for Northern Luzon.
Yu said that under the PNP Sustainable Development Plan, Cascolan has tapped the DIPOs to come up with implementing rules and regulations to operationalize new developments in terms of their expanded functions in internal security operations.
“We envision this development for our DIPOs as one of our frontline units in peace and order functions, particularly our crusade against communist insurgents and other threat groups in far-flung areas across the country,” Cascolan said.
The PNP chief ordered last month the realignment of regional and provincial maneuver units by placing them under the operational control of the DIPOs in order to take bigger functions in relation to internal security operations.
According to Yu, DIPOs will also assume bigger roles in the investigation of major crime and terrorism incidents that crosses jurisdictions of Police Regional Offices.
He said the PNP is also eyeing to fast-track the decongestion and relocation plans for DIPO offices in strategic areas to allow closer supervision of regional and provincial mobile forces.
In 2009, the PNP activated its 5 DIPOs for Northern Luzon, Southern Luzon, Visayas, Eastern Mindanao and Western Mindanao.
The directorate offices are operational units tasked in directing and conducting integrated anti-criminality, internal security and counter-terrorism operations in the five clustered areas.