THE Philippine National Police (PNP) on Monday, February 1, 2021, paid tribute to 28 personnel who died from coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in the line of duty.
“Let their memories be our inspiration to pursue the uninterrupted mission to serve our country and people,” PNP Chief Debold Sinas said during the PNP’s 30th founding anniversary.
As of January 31, 2021, a total of 10,185 police personnel have contracted Sars-CoV-2, including 28 who died. There remained 615 active cases while 9,542 recovered.
Sinas also expressed “gratitude and appreciation” to the local government units, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, and the private companies for continuous support to the PNP.
He noted that they supported the PNP at the height of the pandemic, during which police personnel served as frontliners in the government’s efforts to prevent the spread of the virus.
He also thanked them for their support to the PNP’s anti-criminality, anti-illegal drugs and anti-terrorism programs.
“Foremost let me express the deepest gratitude of the PNP to President Rodrigo Duterte for the support to keep the PNP in a tiptop shape to perform their task and accomplish our mission,” said Sinas.
This year’s PNP Anniversary was dubbed “PNP at 30 kakampi Mo Laban Sa Pandemya, Illegal na Droga, Korupsiyon at Terorismo.”
As part of their 30th anniversary celebration, Sinas said the Under Armour Philippines, as their gift to the PNP, is giving 40 percent discount on all its products to all PNP personnel including those who were already retired from February 1 to February 14, 2021.
"I enjoin the rest of the 220,000 men and women of the PNP to remain steadfast and continuously perform our sworn duty with professionalism, integrity and credibility," Sinas said.
"Let us all volt in as one strong team PNP towards a progressive and safe community and let us have the firm belief that God is always on our side as we move on to our new journey to serve and protect our people," he added.
Newly appointed National Police Commission vice chairman and executive officer Vitaliano Aguirre II, in his speech, urged the policemen to strive for excellence and integrity as the agency aims for a police force of leaders who are direct, understandable, reliable and trustworthy especially during this changing time and everything is interconnected.
"In a volatile world we need direct and decisive leaders of the police force who can act quickly without hesitation to the radical challenges of our fast-changing world, but always within the bounds of the law," he said.
"Our people's trust in us as their public servants will be compensated with our full dearest efforts to better ourselves. My challenge for all is always to strive for excellence and integrity," Aguirre added.
Aguirre thanked Duterte for giving him a second chance and vowed to meet expectations.
Aguirre was first appointed by Duterte as the secretary of the Department of Justice but he opted to step down from his post due to various controversies that included the junking of the cases against two alleged drug lords and alleged attempt to grant special treatment to Janet Lim Napoles, who was tagged as the brains behind the pork barrel scam.
Duterte was also irked by the dismissal of the drug charges against Peter Lim and self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa under Aguirre’s watch.
He threatened Aguirre that he would put him in jail as replacement to Lim and Espinosa if they would be cleared of charges. (SunStar Philippines)