Civilian police auxiliaries to go after NPA too - PNP

MANILA, Philippines - The civilian volunteers who will be trained and armed by the police in Mindanao will not only defend their communities from Moro rebels but also from communist insurgents as well, a police spokesman said Tuesday. Chief Supt. Nicanor Bartolome said the New People’s Army (NPA) remains to be a security threat and thus also justifies the setting up of a community defense composed of armed local residents under the police auxiliary program. “Different regions (in Mindanao) have their own internal problems, say on CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines)-NPA. This is also one of the things that we are considering in the defense of the villages, of the barangays,” Bartolome said in a press briefing in Camp Crame. Bartolome did not disclose what areas in Mindanao the hiring of police auxiliaries will be done, but said the towns in North Cotabato and Lanao del Norte that were recently attacked by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will be the top priorities. He also refused to reveal the number of civilian volunteers that will be hired. Bartolome said all the concerns and anticipated glitches of the said program will be ironed out once the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) is drafted. “The IRR is currently being rushed by our Directorate for Operations and hopefully it will be finished any time this week,” he said. Among those that will be stipulated in the IRR are the uniforms, the salaries and the emphasis that the police auxiliaries will be under the local police commanders. Bartolome said among the safety nets that will be included in the IRR is the assurance that those who will be hired will not end up being personal bodyguards of the local government officials, considering that the local government units will be the ones which will should their salaries through the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA). Aside from the IRR, Bartolome said they are now focused on the procurement of some 12,000 firearms which the PNP will be distributing to the hired police auxiliaries. The fund for the firearms procurement, he said, will be from the PNP like the initial 1,000 shotguns brought to conflict-areas in Mindanao shortly after the MILF raids in Lanao del Norte and North Cotabato. - GMANews.TV