Albayalde marks 1st year as top cop, wants ‘dynamic, professional PNP’

Albayalde said he wants to do this by professionalizing all police officers, from the top brass to the lowest rank. (File Photo: Philippine National Police/Facebook)

MANILA — Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, Gen. Oscar Albayalde said he wants to have a dynamic and professional police organization as he marked his first year as the country’s top cop last April 19.

“It’s challenging and hopefully, they will still continue what we have started. We will continue with the war on drugs because we know that this is the thrust of our administration and the biggest challenge here until now, our internal cleansing and we hope to realize this even after my term and we hope to continue this. The end view is to make this organization a dynamic and professional police organization,” Albayalde told reporters when sought for a comment during Monday’s press briefing.

Albayalde said he wants to do this by professionalizing all police officers, from the top brass to the lowest rank.

“Hopefully, we can reach that. I hope that these illegal activities involving police officers will disappear and our police officers will be pro-active in dealing with complainants or with the people in the community. This is what we want to achieve. We can make it a dynamic professional police force,” he said.

He assured that there will be no letup in PNP support for “clean” policemen who are facing charges for doing their jobs.

While admitting that issues and challenges are always there, Albayalde said what is important is that police officers are able to handle these within the bounds of the law.

Albayalde, the country’s 22nd PNP chief, will retire on Nov. 8 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 56. He replaced Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa who retired in April 2018.

He is an alumnus of the PMA Sinagtala Class of 1986, where he graduated cum laude.

He also holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration at the Manuel L. Quezon University in Manila.

After graduating from the PMA, Albayalde joined the elite Special Action Force (SAF).

Albayalde also served as the Pampanga provincial police chief, although he was relieved from post due to command responsibility after several of his men were found to have been involved in illegal drugs activities in Mexico town. The case, however, was dismissed.

He, however, gained his credibility when he was appointed as the regional director of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) in July 2016.

One of Albayalde’s “defining moments” is when he successfully led the 20,000- strong NCRPO who were deployed to different venues, billets, airport, routes, and tours all over Metro Manila during the 31st Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in 2017.

Earlier, Albayalde urged the 190,000-strong PNP to work as a team and expect the police commanders to adapt his ways just like the conduct of surprise inspections in police stations.