FOUR police stations will be investigated by the Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 for allegedly failing to deploy policemen on time in public schools in Mandaue City and Lapu-Lapu City yesterday.
In a surprise inspection at 6 a.m. yesterday, Senior Supt. Orlando Ualat, officer-in-charge of PRO 7, saw the police assistance desks in the schools were vacant.
“The policemen came but they arrived late. It defeated the purpose of the early deployment,” he told reporters yesterday.
Ualat said he didn’t se uniformed policemen in Mandaue City Central School, Subangdaku Elementary School, Lapu-Lapu City Central School and Ibo Elementary School during the inspection.
The police stations that may be held liable are Police Station 1 and Police Station 2 of Mandaue City Police Office, and Police Station 3 and Police Station 5 of Lapu-Lapu City Police Office.
“I got up early to see if they really complied with our directive. It turned out some of them did not. We really mean business here,” Ualat said.
He directed Senior Supt. Erson Digal, chief of PRO 7’s Regional Operations and Plans Division, to get the side of the police stations.
“We even brought a cameraman to get pictures so they couldn’t reason out,” Ualat said.
Ualat had issued a directive for police officers to be in the field as early as 6 a.m.
They can only go back to their other assignments once classes start, and should be back in schools when classes end, which is usually at 4 p.m.
In crime-prone areas, roving patrols will be conducted by policemen assigned in beat patrol, Ualat said.
Senior Insp. Miguel Andeza, head of Police Station 2, admitted he directed the assigned policemen to be in schools at 7 a.m. yesterday.
During the class opening on Monday, he said policemen were already detailed in schools at 6 a.m. But on the following day, he said students only started arriving at 7 a.m.
“Wala pa man gud kaayo tawo. Seven na kasagaran mag-abot-abot (Students usually arrive in school at 7 a.m.,” Andeza said.