Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto, voicing concerns over the looming depletion of law enforcers nationwide, prodded incoming Philippine National Police Chief Oscar D. Albayalde to step up efforts to fill the PNP personnel gap—projected to add up to over 25,938 vacancies this year—by dangling higher pay incentives.
Recto recommends that for Albayalde to quickly close the huge gap in unfilled police officer positions, “the PNP must go on a recruiting spree, using the recent doubling of base pay of the entry-level Police Officer 1 to P29,668 as a come-on.”
The senator suggested that Albayalde can be a “good poster boy” for the PNP, even as Recto said there are other programs and policies that could also boost recruitment efforts.
“They [PNP] can expand the applicant base by relaxing height or age requirement. And offer more review classes to improve test passing rate,” he added.
In a news statement issued on Wednesday, Recto said plugging the yawning PNP personnel gap should be Albayalde’s “Mission No. 1” after assuming the post as the country’s top cop.
The senator calculated that if all of the vacant PNP positions are filled and distributed equally to the country’s 1,489 municipalities, “each will have an additional 17 policemen. If 20 percent of the slots will be allotted to cities, each will receive 35 more policemen,” he added.
Recto reminded the PNP leadership that “the challenge is to put more boots on the ground,” citing the annual population increase of 1.67 million that he projects to trigger a corresponding need to boost police strength by 3,340 yearly, on a 1:500 cop-to-population ratio.
“And if all of these new recruits will be given patrolling duties, it will solve the chronic lack of police officers on the ground,” the Senate President Pro Tempore said, lamenting that citizens no longer see police presence in such common areas as street corners, places under bridges, underpasses and public parks. “There is really a gap,” the senator added.
At the same time, Recto recalled the PNP had an authorized uniformed troop strength of 194,410, but only 168,472 “are or will be filled this year, based on the budget department-prepared 2018 government staffing pattern.”
Recto rued that “not all of the 168,472 are on duty—some may be sick, absent, on schooling, suspended, or assigned to administrative duties, so the actual policeman-to-population ratio at any given hour of the day is below what is on paper.”
To close the huge gap in unfilled police officer positions, Recto recommended the PNP “must go on a recruiting spree, using the recent doubling of the base pay of the entry-level Police Officer 1 to P29,668 as a come-on.”
Recto added that “before you can put more policemen on the streets, you have to put more of them in uniform first.” This, even as he noted that “salaries and allowances eat up 86 percent, or P113 billion, of the PNP’s 2018 budget of P132.3 billion,” adding that a “big chunk” of the PNP’s personnel compensation budget goes to its 76,000 police officers.