All policemen—from generals down to the lowest ranking uniformed policeman— will be required to have or maintain a sound body that is acceptable to the eyes of the public, an official of the Philippine National Police (PNP) said on Tuesday, June 10.

PNP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Jean Fajardo said no less than national police chief Gen. Nicolas Torre III emphasized the policy on the need to maintain a physically fit feature as he argued that having a sound body is an indication of good discipline.

“As they say, a sound body, sound mind, thus the physical appearance of the police should already reflect discipline. That is what our Chief PNP wants,” said Fajardo.

And there’s no excuse since according to Fajardo, Torre, at the age of 55, could still do 100 push-ups.

Besides, she said there is an existing policy in the PNP that those who would flunk the physical fitness test twice cannot be promoted--and this will be strictly implemented. 

“This will be very challenging to our personnel who have already gained extra weight but as the Chief PNP said, “I don’t care, I will not command what kind of exercise you need and if it needs to consult your doctors on the kind of exercises that you need but I have to see that you are exerting efforts to lose weight’,” said Fajardo.

This is not the first time that a sitting Chief PNP compelled all policemen to lose weight.

During the time of Panfilo Lacson, all policemen were required to maintain a 34-inch waistline while Jesus Verzosa implemented the requirement for every cop to go up to a 10-storey building using stairs.

Then PNP chief Archie Gamboa, on the other hand, implemented the Body Mass Index while Debold Sinas even consulted with fitness instructors to come up with a sitting exercise routine.

On the part of Torre, he said all parameters will be considered, including age and height, in coming up with exercise challenges that must be passed by all policemen.

But the bottom line is to have a body that is acceptable to the public.

Fajardo said that all policemen must take the instruction of the Chief PNP seriously as she insinuated that there could be a surprise and random conduct of physical fitness tests like push-ups by Torre himself. 

If a policeman would fail the random and surprise physical fitness test (PFT, he said the PFT data of the policeman would be retrieved and the personnel who supervised the PFT would be asked to explain why he was given a passing rate.

One thing is clear, according to Fajardo: Torre will not intervene on how the policemen would lose weight since there are medical conditions that must also be considered.

“But as a general rule, the Chief PNP said, I want every policeman to be fit,” said Fajardo.