Out of the 955 full colonels and generals of the PNP, only 12 have not submitted their courtesy resignations, according to the DILG Secretary. He added that of the 12, five of them have retired and 6 are retiring, hence for all intents and purposes only one has not only resigned.
It has not been identified whether this one non-resigning PNP officer is a colonel or a general, but whoever he is, he is the gutsy officer who has defied the order, euphemistically called “appeal” of the DILG and the PNP chiefs. This one man standing appears to be the only one among the 955 top-ranking cops who have the balls to refuse or defy the call to submit courtesy resignations.
It looks like he is the only one who knows his law on civil service and is aware of his constitutional right to due process. He deserves to be the next PNP Chief unless he is one of those referred to be one among the nine rogue cops targeted to be yanked out from the police force.
The call for a courtesy resignation to those uniformed law enforcement officers, as this lawyer has repeatedly opined on his TV programs and other fora, is a subtle coercive violation of their security of tenure. Whatever animal euphemism you deodorize it with, the call to resign is a thinly disguised and repulsive transgression of the Constitution and the laws on the suspension and dismissal of employees of the government.
What is so ridiculous is that the DILG and the PNP hierarchy cannot even categorically answer the question: Have the nine PNP officers said to be involved in the illegal drug trafficking submitted their courtesy resignations? Their silence on this issue can only lead to a reasonable conclusion that the nine are among the 12 who did not or refused to submit the courtesy resignation required of them.
So if they have not resigned, that hare-brained idea of asking them to resign is a total failure.
If you listen to the latest perorations of the DILG Secretary, it looks like the aforementioned officers were hoodwinked into believing that they were asked to resign to weed out the nine rogue cops as a way of removing them without resorting to the regular administrative process because they do not have the goods against them. But it seems now they have been entrapped to submit their courtesy resignations so that their services could be terminated swiftly without going through the long winding legal rigmarole of an administrative process that could lead only to the junking of administrative and criminal complaints against them because they lack the evidence to nail them.
Initially, these naive officers were made to swallow the notion that it is only when they are involved in the sale and distribution of illegal drugs that could qualify them into being dismissed from their employment but it’s coming out now that the basis for the acceptance of their courtesy resignation is not confined to their links to the illegal drugs but even to all kinds of misconduct, misdemeanor and other violations of law that may appear in their personal records as found in the PNP office file.
In other words, the five-man committee created by the DILG to go over their personal file will arbitrarily decide whose resignations they will accept and forthwith recommend their dismissal to the National Police Commission which will likewise review their records and determine with finality their fate.
Nothing has been said about the officers’ right to contest the derogatory remarks, if any, appearing in their records. There is no mention of the observance of their right to due process, and their entitlement to a notice and fair public hearing.
In other words, they will be at the mercy of the five-man committee and the Napolcom. Their constitutional right to security of tenure, as well as their right to due process, will be thrown into the gutter.
The DILG and the PNP bosses are treading on dangerous grounds or walking on a tightrope or skating on very thin ice. If they do not know it yet, they have demoralized the majority of these high-ranking police officers and they may have sown the seeds of discontent, which if they are not properly handled or nip in the bud, could trigger an upheaval they may not be prepared to contain or crush.
For their information, this columnist has received alarming and disconcerting messages from not a few of those PNP officers, one of which will be reproduced by this column for their serious study, to wit:
“Sir, most of the 3rd level officers who are PNPA graduates are disappointed with the composition of the 5-Man Committee, 3 are PMAyers, no check, and balance. I don’t think Sir magiging (will be) impartial pa and why is the CPNP included Sir when he himself is also a subject of scrutiny by the committee? I think we are just fooling ourselves.”
Other messages are inflammatory and will let other outlets reproduce them.
Let’s see how the cookie crumbles.