92 police officials in the Philippines have been relived of their duties after what the Philippine National Police deemed as failure to act in the agency’s campaign against illegal gambling. PNP chief Alan Purisima approved the decision to let these police officials go, signaling to the rest of the force that the agency is pretty serious about its enforcement of the “one-strike” policy against illegal gambling.
According to the PNP’s Letter of Instruction 27/2012, any successful raid by a non-organic PNP unit that proves the supposed existence of illegal gambling operations within a certain jurisdiction will result in the relieval of duties of the police chief, as well as station commanders.
Well, that’s a little harsh, ain’t it?
But following the letter of that law, investigations held by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and Intelligence Group (IG) from February 14 to March 13 resulted in the arrest of 193 individuals to go with seizures of cash bets and gambling paraphernalia. The two non-organic units staged 121 operations in that span of time, and consequently resulting in the relief of 92 chiefs of police and precinct commanders. Director Don Montenegro, head of the PNP’s Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management, issued the recommendation to give these police officials the proverbial pink slips with Director Catalino Uy, head of the PNP Directorate for Personnel and Records Management, ready to implement Purisima’s directive sooner than later.
All told, numerous precinct commanders from all over the Philippines have been relived of their duties, covering all three islands, including a pair of officials from Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.
