As the election fever starts to heat up, policemen across the country were warned on Monday, June 28, not to involve themselves in partisan politics and focus instead in their mandate of maintaining peace and order.
“Policemen have no business in politics unless they resign and run for public office or openly support a candidate. We have already mechanisms to isolate the PNP from politics and we will make sure that all of these are in place and are properly observed,” said Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief, Police General Guillermo Lorenzo T Eleazar.
Eleazar echoed the statement of Interior Secretary Eduardo Año who issued the warning after six policemen from Negros Occidental were dismissed from the service for allowing themselves to be used by a local politician to harass a political rival in 2017.
The National Police Commission, chaired by Año, recently dismissed the six policemen after finding them guilty of grave misconduct and grave irregularities in the performance of their duty by subjecting in 2017 then Moises Padilla Municipality Vice-Mayor Ella Garcia-Yulo to an illegal search and seizure.
After a thorough probe, the Napolcom found that the six PNP personnel subjected Yulo to political harassment as she was planning to run for mayor in 2019 against then incumbent Mayor Magdaleno Peña.
“The incident that happened in Negros Occidental wherein six PNP personnel were dismissed from the service for dipping their fingers into local politics should serve as a warning to all other personnel about the risk they are staking for involving themselves in politics,” said Eleazar.
"I would like to remind our police personnel that your police career is active until you are 56 years old. Your tour of duty as policemen are way longer than that of politicians. So don't spoil your police career by meddling into politics during the campaign and election period because if you are found guilty, you will lose everything that you worked for in the PNP," he added.
Eleazar said PNP personnel should instead focus on coming up with measures to ensure an orderly, credible and peaceful national and local elections next year.