11 senior police officials yet to submit courtesy resignations, PNP chief says
SENIOR police officers that will not tender their courtesy resignations will still be subjected to “screening” in the ongoing purge in the Philippine National Police (PNP).
PNP chief General Rodolfo Azurin Jr. assured during a news briefing on Monday wherein he disclosed that only 11 senior officers have not submitted their courtesy resignations, nearly a month after Interior and Local Government Secretary
Benhur Abalos Jr. asked all police colonels and generals in the PNP to hand in their resignations in a move to clear the organization from officers allegedly involved in illegal drugs.
The eight police colonels and three generals, Azurin said, have until the end of this month to turn in their voluntary resignation letters.
“The Directorate for Personnel and Records Management [DPRM] is awaiting the submission of 11 letters of courtesy resignation from eight police colonels and three police brigadier generals until January 31, 2023 target date,” Azurin said.
“As of January 20, 2023, the DPRM Discipline, Law and Order Division has received the courtesy resignation of 942 senior PNP officers from among the 953 third level police officials,” he added.
The PNP chief hopes that the 11 officials will comply with the call of Abalos until the end of this month. Azurin said that even without the officials’ submitting their letters of voluntary resignation, the five-man committee tasked to screen all the senior officers and their records would look into the papers and backgrounds of the 11 police officials.
Azurin said impending retirements are not an issue in the submission of resignation papers.
“Maybe, they are still trying to discern whether they should still submit since they are about to retire. But to us, we also still encourage that they should submit so that they could be cleared,” he said.
Missing ‘sabungeros’ case update
AZURIN also said the ongoing police investigation into the case of 34 missing “sabungeros” is showing encouraging results as three accused in the kidnapping of e-sabong master agent Ricardo Lasco in San Pablo City, Laguna on August 30, 2021 have surrendered to the police.
The three, who are now in police custody, were identified as Rigel Brosas, Daryl Paghangaan and Roy Navarrete. They are former policemen who have been dismissed from the service on December 29, 2022.
Azurin said the three were subjects of a warrant of arrest issued by a court in Laguna for the crime of robbery, kidnapping and serious illegal detention.