DILG Pushing Annual Funding for RPOCs

October 9, 2009

Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronnie V. Puno is working for a budgetary allocation for Regional Peace and Order Councils (RPOCs) in the country amid the growing need to step up the fight against criminal elements, communist insurgents and Muslim separatist groups.

Puno, who is chairman of the National Peace and Order Council, said there is an urgent need to institutionalize the role of the RPOCs in fighting criminals and anti-government elements and weaning RPOCs from funding lack is one big step to fully achieving this institutionalized role.
 
Hence, the DILG will lobby the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to include an outlay for RPOCs, said Puno in recent RPOC meetings all over the country.
 
As it is, Puno said, there is no regular funding even for RPOC regular meetings and this hampers the present task of regional and provincial councils to draft their respective security plans anchored on the convergence of the various elements, institutions and conditions of the peace and order efforts in their localities.
 
Under the general concept of convergence, the national peace and order program should fuse with security plans based on the actual conditions in the regions and provinces and local community service plans as well.
 
“I am lobbying for something,” he said during the RPOC meeting in Davao del Sur. “In the Department of Budget and Management for next year, I am going to push for a category on RPOCs. At ating ii-institutionalize ang RPOCs, beginning next year.”
 
Puno, who also chairs the National Police Commission, said that the RPOCs have to be stable, adequately-funded institutions because they could not fulfill their tough task of designing and writing the convergence program against the insurgency threats should they remain dependent on ad hoc financing.
 
The funding leeway for the critical peace and order work is made possible by the fiscal stability of government–which is still a long way from exceeding its deficit targets, Puno said,
 
The financial cushion of the Arroyo administration, brought about by the economic reform program that the President had put in place on her watch, vests it with the flexibility to hire more police officers, execute the convergence programs, and fund the public works and infrastructure projects needed to promote peace and progress in the threatened areas.
 
While the general plan is to add 3,000 police officers a year, this year roughly 7,000 will be hired, said Puno, to augment the country’s PNP personnel.
 
Part of the convergence program is identifying critical roads and bridges that need to be built to speed up the access to remote areas where communist insurgents and Muslim separatist rebels operate, said Puno.
 
President Arroyo is determined to end the communist insurgency problem before the year ends, he said.
 
From 100 communist fronts, the revolutionary left only has 54 fronts left in the face of the stepped-up counterinsurgency program of the military and police, Puno added.
 
The resumption of the government’s peace talks with the MILF is designed to once and for all end the separatist problem in Muslim Mindanao, he added.