Advances in technology, along with the unavoidable effects of climate change, bring new challenges to this year’s graduates of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) who will be assigned to the various law enforcement and public safety agencies of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), Secretary Ronnie Puno said.
Puno said that PNPA graduates who will be assigned to the Philippine National Police (PNP) now face offenders who employ the same scientific methods, sophisticated weaponry and equipment, and persuasive abilities that they themselves have to help prevent and fight crime.
“You are indeed facing a new world,” Puno told the 198 new graduates of the PNPA during the academy’s 31st commencement exercises held at Camp Gen. Mariano Castaneda in Silang, Cavite. “If you are going to law enforcement, you face criminals far more sophisticated than any of their kind in our history.”
Of the 198 new PNPA graduates, 159 preferred to be assigned to the PNP; 21 to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP); and 18 to the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP). The graduates, of which 159 are male and 39 are female, will enter their chosen fields with the rank of inspector with permanent status.
Graduates who will be assigned to BFP now face the task of protecting lives and property not only from destructive fires, but also natural disasters triggered by climate change, such massive floods, Puno noted.
He said the onslaught last year of typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” have shown the critical role that the BFP plays in relief and rescue operations during calamities as it has always been the first to respond to such emergencies despite its meager resources and facilities.
Those who will go to the BJMP will now have to adopt to the agency’s new philosophy of shifting from the corrective to the restorative form of justice in taking care of, and rehabilitating, detainees on their watch, Puno noted.
“These are the challenges that you face today,” Puno said.
Puno, who was the guest of honor and speaker at the event, said it was only fitting that this year’s graduates chose to name their batch the “Mabikas” class which means “Makabagong Binhi ng Kasaysayan (New Breed in our History) because they are now part of a new beginning for our country, whose development, especially in the field of law enforcement and public safety, had been unparalleled in the past nine years on the watch of President Arroyo.
“We have accomplished many things together under a regime that values public safety and under a leadership that considers public safety one of the essential foundations of our society,” Puno said.
