Cheating discovered in Napolcom police exam

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BAGUIO CITY – The National Police Commission (Napolcom) is now investigating a case of cheating during the Philippine National Police (PNP) entrance and promotional examinations on April 26 at the University of Baguio (UB).

Soledad Bengwaren, acting chief of Napolcom-Cordillera Administrative Region’s (CAR) administration division and concurrent public information officer, said the Napolcom is conducting an investigation of an examinee who was only identified to be a civilian first time taker.

“If the investigation proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the suspect cheated, then the examinee will forever be banned from taking the PNP examination,” Bengwaren stressed, citing existing rules of the Commission.

“It is really an isolated case and none of the other exam centers reported a similar case in the country,” she added.

According to Napolcom Memorandum Circular 2013-007, examination results of the examinee found to have cheated will be invalidated and the examinee will be barred from taking future Napolcom examinations.

It added “Individuals who are found to have used fake Napolcom eligibility for their entry into the police service shall likewise be permanently barred from taking the Napolcom examinations.”

It was not clear what the nature of the anomaly was in Sunday’s examinations but the circular enumerates the following as constituting cheating: impersonation; use of codigo or crib sheets; tampering of exam records; collusion of whatever nature between examinees and examination personnel; examination number switching; acts that facilitate the passing of an examination; and results declared by the Commission as statistically improbable.

To ensure that the cheating is not done during examinations, Director Josephmar B. Gil said that examinees are not allowed to bring with them their cellular phones inside testing centers.

He added that examinees may not bring with them electronic gadgets, pagers, two-way radio sets, calculators, and review materials.

Meanwhile, Napolcom vice chairman and executive officer Eduardo U. Escueta disclosed that there were 35,674 examinees who took the examinations in designated testing centers around the country.

He added 13,334 took the PNP entrance examination while 22,340 took the promotional examinations.

A total of 1,343 out of the 13,334 examinees for the PNP entrance test and 2,719 out of the 22,340 police examinees for promotional took the PNP exams in the National Capital Region (NCR) testing centers, the rest took the exams in regional testing centers.

The University of Baguio was the designated testing center for the CAR.

Gil added that the police promotional examinations for Police Officer 2 and 3; Senior Police Officer 1 to 4; Police Inspector (for Inspector and Senior Inspector); and Police Superintendent (for Chief Inspectors and Superintendents).

“The PNP entrance examination consists of questions on general information, verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning and logical reasoning; while the promotional examinations include general information, police administration and operations, and police customs and tradition/values and ethical standards,” Escueta said.