BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan will be immediately convening the screening committee for the position of City Director of the Baguio City Police Office (BCPO) once the shortlist of qualified senior police officers will be transmitted to his office by the Police Regional Office (PRO) in the Cordillera.
The local chief executive was informed that the shortlist, which was approved by the National Police Commission (NAPOLCOM) en banc in 2014, was already forwarded by the NAPOLCOM-CAR regional office to the PRO-COR which, in turn, will transmit the shortlist to the city mayor for the selection of the permanent BCPO chief.
“We had been demanding for the shortlist to be given to us pursuant to the existing rules and regulations but it took them more than two years before such shortlist will be given to us,” Mayor Domogan stressed.
The screening committee is chaired by the city mayor with members composed of the city administrator, DILG Baguio field office director, city human resource management officer, Liga ng mga Barangay president, city prosecutor and a member of the media, particularly the president of the Baguio Correspondents and Broadcasters Club (BCBC).
Domogan said the city will now have a chance to have a permanent chief of police after over three years of having an officer-in-charge so that the city government could already work with the BCPO for the crafting of long-term peace and order strategies aimed at making the city a peaceful place to study, work, live and do business.
Under the law, local chief executives are given a 5-day grace period to select from the five nominees on who will be given a permanent appointment as the next chief of police.
He explained that police officials who will be assigned as officers-in-charge of police stations should only serve for a maximum period of 30 days while the shortlist from the PNP headquarters will be transmitted to the local chief executives for the selection of their chiefs of police.
However, the city mayor pointed out that such scenario did not happen in the case of the city for over three years because the PNP assigned an officer-in-charged that served as OIC for nearly two years.
The process starts with the Senior Officers Placement Board of the PNP which will come out with the shortlist of the qualified senior officers for the vacant position of chief of police before the list will be submitted to the NAPOLCOM en banc for confirmation. The confirmed list will then be endorsed to the PNP general headquarters which submits the same to the NAPOLCOM regional office, then to the PRO concerned before being transmitted to the local chief executive concerned for the selection of the next chief of police.
Domogan said he does not want to exercise his sole discretion of selecting the next chief of police but he wants to involve concerned stakeholders so that the most qualified BCPO chief will be selected and who will serve the city for the next two years./Dexter A. See
