Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), has ordered intensified measures to prevent policemen from moonlighting as security escorts following the arrest of an operative of the Highway Patrol Group (HPG) for allegedly serving as escort of a VIP in Parañaque City on Monday, May 27.
The arrest of the HPG personnel came several days after a fistfight incident in Muntinlupa City wherein the two involved in a scuffle turned out to be members of the police’s elite Special Action Force who were illegally providing security to an official of the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO).
Marbil said he already empowered both the PNP’s Integrity Monitoring and Enforcement Group (IMEG) and the Internal Affairs Service (IAS) in coming up with measures to discourage and to prevent policemen from engaging in such illegal activity.
“The guidance I gave is for the IMEG and the IAS to really conduct strict accounting of personnel to make sure that these things are not happening,” said Marbil.
One of the measures that is now in effect, according to Marbil, is to strengthen the concept of command responsibility, which means that immediate commanders would be held liable if at least one of their men is caught illegally providing security to any person.
This is what he was doing, according to Marbil, when the two SAF commandos assigned in Mindanao were caught moonlighting as a POGO official security escort in Metro Manila.
In fact, he said the relief order and investigation went as high as the level of the battalion commander of the two SAF commandos.
In the case of the HPG personnel who was caught during an operation against the illegal use of sirens and blinkers in Parañaque City on Monday, Marbil said his instruction is to conduct investigation into his immediate commander.
“Before, we only looked at the people involved, there was no command responsibility. Now we put command responsibility because these things will not happen without the knowledge of the immediate commander,” said Marbil.
“We are not forgiving on things like this. We will not allow this and we will make sure that measures will be implemented to prevent this,” he added.