Cheats will be punished, police test takers warned

AFTER reports of massive cheating were recently confirmed in last year's test, the National Police Commission (Napolcom) warned the 32,530 takers of Sunday's police exams that those who will commit the same wrongdoing will not be left unpunished.

Napolcom Vice Chairman and Executive Officer Eduardo Escueta said anyone who would cheat in the Philippine National Police (PNP) entrance examination will meet the necessary punitive actions including the invalidation of the test results and service eligibility.

"[A]nyone who commits any form of examination irregularity, such as cheating, impersonation, perjury, or violation of examination rules shall be dealt with administratively and/or criminally," Escueta said.

He added that 14,988 will take the exams while 17,542 are distributed to the various promotional test categories.

Sunday's tests will cover the qualifying examinations for Police Officer I and the promotional examinations for Police Officers 2 and 3; Senior Police Officer (for SPO1 to SPO4); Police Inspector (for Inspector and Senior Inspector); and Police Superintendent (for Chief Inspector and Superintendent).

Escueta issued the warning to the examinees days after the Napolcom invalidated the test results of 387 individuals who were found guilty of cheating in the April 17, 2011 exams.

He said the Napolcom analyzed the answer patterns of all successful takers and discovered that 387 examinees "were found to have a high percentage, ranging from 50 to 100 percent, of homogenous wrong answers."

Examinees involved in the irregularities shall be nullified pursuant to the provisions of Napolcom Memorandum Circular 2000-007.

Based also on the same document, Escueta added that the examinees who were proven of committing cheating shall be barred from taking the PNP entrance exams for a period of three years.

He added that the Napolcom is committed in weeding out those who undermine "the sanctity and integrity" of the police exams. (Emmanuel Louis Bacani/Sunnex)