Graduates of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) are reportedly making plans to protest the alleged discrimination against them within the Philippine National Police (PNP) organization, against a system that they said tend to favor graduates of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA).
The PNPA graduates are said to be bristling at the alleged favoritism in the appointment of officers to vacant positions in the PNP, which reportedly are being reserved for the graduates of the Philippine Military Academy but who comprise the minority in the organization.
There are only about 300 PMA officers in the PNP but more than 95 percent of them are said to be occupying key positions in the organization, which has 3,600 PNPA graduates.
A paper circulated in Camp Crame and in other PNP camps on Tuesday says class presidents from the PNPA from 1983 up to 1992 have been holding meetings with their classmates to discuss how they can effectively protest the “unfair treatment” of the PNPA graduates in the PNP.
The graduates of the police academy are particularly critical of the membership of the Senior Officers Placement and Promotions Board or SOPPB, the body tasked to screen and recommend officers to key positions in the PNP and which is composed of PMA graduates.
“The current SOPPB board members are obviously biased in favor of every PMA alumnus applying for any key position at the PNP,” the paper says.
“The chances are nil for the applicants from the PNPA who have even complied with qualification standards such as eligibility, education, training and time-in grade.”
Two groups of non-PMAERS at the PNP—the more than 3,000 members of the Association of Police Lateral Entrants or APOLE and the more than 1,000 members of the Police ROTC Graduates for Integrity, Morality and Order or PRIMO—have signified their intention to join the planned protest of the PNPA officers.
“The police officers from the PNPA, APOLE and PRIMO are similarly situated because they are virtually considered second-class citizens in their own backyard in terms of promotion and assignments,” a source from the APOLE group said in the paper.
The source also claims that only PMA officers comprise the membership of the SOPPB, and that they favor their fellow PMA graduates when filling up vacant positions in the PNP.
The PNP Law says local chief executives have a say on the designation or appointment of officials in their respective localities, but that provision is said to be ignored if it works against the PMA graduates in the PNP.
“The PNPA graduates have no chance here [PNP],” the source said.--Source: Manila Standard Today