A LEGISLATOR from Mindanao is seeking the restoration of the Constabulary (PC), with the elite Special Action Force (SAF) as the core, to have an armed service that is focused on suppressing domestic-security threats, particularly terrorism and insurgency.
Liberal Party Rep. Johnny T. Pimentel of the Second District of Surigao del Sur asked President Duterte to certify as urgent.
Under House Bill 3768, Pimentel proposed the reactivation of the Constabulary by by amending the 1990 law that created the National Police and the 1998 law that gave the Armed Forces primary jurisdiction over internal security.
“Considering it was the President himself who first broached the renewal of the PC, we’re asking him to certify the bill as urgent,” said Pimentel, a member of the Committee on National Defense and Security.
“With the President’s resolve to chart a truly independent foreign policy, it has become absolutely imperative for Congress to release the Armed Forces from its duties in maintaining internal security,” Pimentel said.
The Armed Forces’s three existing service commands—the Army, Navy and the Air Force—should now concentrate entirely on preparing to defend the national sovereignty and territory against external threats, the lawmaker said.
As proposed by Pimentel, the reactivated Constabulary would have jurisdiction in civil-law enforcement, and its pioneers would be the SAF, the national maneuver unit of the National Police patterned after the renowned Special Air Service of England.
“The SAF troopers are in the best position to spearhead the new Constabulary. They’ve undergone extensive military-type training in counterterrorism, unconventional warfare, crisis-incident response, hostage situation and rescue, as well as antihijacking operations, and in offensive take-over raids against targets in civilian areas,” Pimentel said.
“Actually our SAF now used to be the Constabulary Special Action Force,” he said.
Former President Fidel V. Ramos founded the Constabulary Special Action Force in 1983, when he was then chief of the now defunct Constabulary.
The Constabulary was merged with the Integrated National Police to form the National Police in 1991.
Duterte first mentioned the revival of the PC shortly after the September 2 bombings in Davao City that claimed the lives of 15 people and left 70 others wounded.
He said the PC may be needed to help fight urban terrorism, which he called the next big threat the country faces, and drug trafficking.