Mayor Oscar G. Malapitan’s smile gives away his satisfaction as he commended the Caloocan City police force for bagging the “most trusted police station in Metro Manila” honors for 2017.
Malapitan congratulated the city’s police force, headed by Senior Supt. Jemar Mondequillo, after it got 88.8-percent trust rating in the October-to-November survey last year of the National Police Commission (Napolcom).
The mayor asked the police to keep up the good work and continue garnering the highest trust rating in Metro Manila.
Napolcom said Caloocan City got the highest rating among the 15 police stations in the National Capital Region (NCR).
Manila and Quezon City were surveyed under the category of “police district,” Napolcom said.
Napolcom said the survey was done through its own initiative, and was not commissioned by the local government units, including Malapitan’s administration.
The commission’s point was to make it clear that the survey was part of the regular activity of Napolcom, of which the purpose is to find out the perception and views of the public on the police units in the country, specifically in NCR.
Malapitan said the 88.8-percent rating only showed that his administration’s consistent support to the police force has paid off.
The mayor, who is on his second term, disclosed that his administration has already given a total of 31 police patrol vehicles, 10 police pickups, guns and ammunitions and structures that served as police community precincts (PCP) since he became mayor in June 2013.
According to Nolan B. Sison, the city government’s officer in charge of the Public Information Office, Malapitan has been doing this to ensure police visibility in different areas of the city so that peace and order will always prevail in the city.
Sison said peace and order is one of the principal concerns of Malapitan’s administration in order to make the city economically progressive.
Others are education, cleanliness, health, economy and so on. Rommel M. Dario, chief of staff of Second District Councilor Edgardo N. Aruelo, told the BusinessMirror that all the city government’s assistance to the police force was approved by the Sangguniang Panglunsod.
Dario stressed that Malapitan could not easily order the city government’s Budget Department or the General Services Department to release funds to donate or purchase police patrol vehicles or build structures for PCPs without the approval of the Sangguniang Panglunsod and the role of the bidding procedure if the city government will purchase any item because all of these were imposed by the enabling laws of the country.
He said that, if Malapitan wants to donate vehicles to the police, the Sanguniang Panlungsod will release an authority to donate.
If it is about the allowance for the police, Dario said, the council should release an appropriation ordinance.
The Napolcom’s survey appeared to be a very big thing to Malapitan, since he was relieved from the extreme negative image made by rogue police officers of the city’s police, in particular, and on Caloocan City, in general.
It can be recalled that Caloocan City became a very hot item in the news from August to September last year due to the brutal killings of 17-year-old Kian Loyd de los Santos and 19-year-old Carl Angelo Arnaiz by police officers.
The police officers who were involved have been charged at the proper courts by the Department of Justice.
The killing was reportedly part of the bloody war of the Duterte administration against illegal drugs.
Although there were only few rogue cops who committed the killing of de los Santos and Arnaiz, the incidents have undeniably tarnished the image and credibility of Caloocan City that Malapitan established and nurtured since he became mayor five years ago, because the crimes were sensationalized by Duterte opponents.
In 2016 Caloocan City got the third spot for the most-trusted police station in the whole NCR after getting 65-percent trust ratings.
Thus, the Napolcom’s 2017 survey was considered as a big accomplishment of the Caloocan City police and the Malapitan administration.