IF JUDGES and prosecutors are receiving monthly allowances from the city government, why not members of the city police force?

This was an issue raised by City Councilor Alexander “Aleckoy” Lim on Friday, as he urged fellow city lawmakers to consider adopting legislation to augment the monthly pay of members of the City PNP as a way of helping them shun the temptations of “easy money” coming from illegal activities. Since the previous administration, judges assigned in the Regional Trial Courts (RTC) and City Prosecutors have each been allotted a monthly stipend of P2,000 from the city government. In a privilege speech during the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) session last Friday, Lim said that by standards of average incomes, policemen could still be considered as “poorly paid”. “Our policemen often fall prey to private lending firms. If reports are true that several members of our local police are forced into taking out salary loans perpetrated by lending institutions then I believe that an investigation should be undertaken by the appropriate committee or committees of this Sanggunian,” Lim said in his speech. According to the lawmaker, cash-strapped policemen who are no longer receiving an adequate amount of their monthly pay due to loans, may be lured into accepting bribes from illegal activities, such as illegal gambling or even from the illegal drug trade.

An entry-level policeman, with a rank of PO1 (Police Officer 1) receives a total monthly salary of around P21,000.00 which includes their basic pay, quarters allowance, subsistence allowance, clothing allowance, personal economic relief allowance (PERA), additional compensation and hazard pay. Then there are required schoolings for all policemen, mandatory and to be taken whether they are non-commissioned or commissioned officers. According to Lim, since most of policemen have nothing left from their monthly salary because they are heavily in debt from lending firms, many would no longer be in a position to take the specialized and mandatory schooling. “I have learned that a PO1 (Police Officer 1) would spend as much as P50,000.00 (more or less) for a 12-week schooling, which does not include travel expenses from Bohol to the PNP training centers in Cebu,” he explained. “When policemen undergo such schooling or training, and they are already indebted to lending firms, almost nothing would be left for their personal needs and that of their family, since the PNP automatically deducts the training expenses from their monthly subsistence pay,” Lim said, adding that many of the policemen are compelled to lend some more money, and most often, they go to the same lending company for their cash needs. Lim urged fellow city councilors to check and properly address the situation.

“While we are busy talking and debating about cleaning our streets with drug pushers, drug addicts and suertres operators or financiers, we could not even help members of our PNP and prevent them from becoming potential scalawags,” he said. Councilor Lim said that the police force should be treated on the same level of significance as the other pillars of the criminal justice system. “Our police is vital in a functioning justice system. While our City Government is allocating allowances and subsidies to our Judges and Prosecutors from our yearly Budget, why can't we give allowances and subsidies to our policemen?” Although there is an ongoing debate as to the propriety of local government units (LGUs) giving monthly allowances to judges and prosecutors in the form of Special Allowance for the Judiciary (SAJ) which is allowed under Budgetary Rules and Regulations, Lim believes that the same should be made available to members of the city PNP. “We allocate millions of pesos for Intelligence Fund, apart from the regular appropriation for Peace and Order and the Confidential Fund for the Office of the City Mayor and more budgetary items classified either as Intelligence or Confidential Fund, under the City Mayor's operating expenditures, if somehow we can subsidize the schooling and training of our police force, then we might be able to improve their performance. We are all well aware that we do not have much in our city coffers but as I have mentioned the above budgetary items, this is where funding for this purpose can be sourced out,” Lim declared.

During the said SP session, lawmakers agreed to conduct inquiries in aid of legislation regarding Lim's proposal through the Committee on Protective Services and the Committee on Public Accountability and Investigations, chaired by City Councilor Adam Relson Jala and Lim. Initially, Lim proposed that the city government will be the one to grant loans to policemen assigned in the city which will be coordinated with the Landbank (where all the salaries of policemen and PNP employees are coursed through) both to automatically deduct the loan and deposit the deducted money back to the city's PNP account. The said loan arrangement will be more of an emergency in nature and short-loan program for the police. However, there will be no interest and that the only fee that will be charged will be very minimal similar to that of a transaction or processing fee.