PALO, Leyte- A total of 234 new policemen took their oath on Wednesday (July 1) at the Camp Ruperto Kangleon grounds, this town.
Brigadier General Bernabe Balba, director of Police Regional Office (PRO)-8, congratulated the new batch of officers of the Philippine National Police (PNP) for passing the rigorous selection process.
“To the newly recruits, you have met an incredible obstacle on your journey of becoming police officers, and keep this in mind that being such is not just a mere job, but rather, it is a title with responsibility, passion, and dedication,” Balba said.
He also thanked the medical personnel, recruitment team, and other personnel in-charge in the recruitment process “who made extra efforts for the accomplishment of this recruitment amid the coronavirus disease pandemic.”
“I always want to emphasize the three basic Filipino values which actually and faithfully represent the fundamentals of law enforcement that are all attuned to and aligned with the focus directives of our Chief PNP General Archie Francisco Gamboa. These core values are summed up by the acronym 3M, represented by Malinis, Magalang, and Maasahan,” the police official said in a statement.
Out of the 1,305 applicants who have undergone the face to face interview for the First Cycle CY 2020 Regular Recruitment Program, only 234 successfully passed the process.
“Of these 234, 196 are males and 38 are females. To fill up the quota of 250 recruits,16 male qualified applicants from Police Regional Office (PRO) – 6 are now en route to join as they are realigned to this PRO,” added Lieutenant Colonel Ma. Bella Rentuaya, spokesperson of PRO-8.
The new batch of police officers will undergo the mandatory training, Public Safety Basic Recruit Course (PSBRC) for six months at the Regional Training Center (RTC) in Kuta Kankabato, San Jose, Tacloban City.
It will be followed by another six months of the Field Training Program (FTP).
According to Rentuaya, the recruitment process followed all the health guidelines and protocols amid the health crisis.
(RONALD O.REYES with RESTITUTO A. CAYUBIT )

TACLOBAN CITY – Subjecting all arriving locally stranded individuals (LSIs) to swab test is resource draining.
Instead these returning LSIs should be immediately isolated or quarantined by their respective local government units, Roderick Boyd Cerro, sentinel nurse and chief of the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit of the Department of Health(DOH-8), said.
The spike of coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) cases of the region was largely attributed to the massive arrivals of the LSIs as well as those who have availed of the Balik Probinsiya program and returning overseas workers.
Of the 563 confirmed COVID-19 cases of the region, more than half of them were LSIs.
“We have sufficient evidence that these returning residents are infected. Testing them is resource draining. We need huge amount of resources if we will test them all,”Cerro said.
“These returning LSIs, upon their arrival, should be immediately quarantined for 14 days. We don’t need to test them, we’ll just consider them as infected. This way, our resources would not be exhausted and better used for testing for local transmission which is far more dangerous,” the health official added.
The return of the LSIs to Eastern Visayas was temporary halted by the government through a resolution of the National Inter-Agency on COVID-19. This after the region’s lawmakers and mayors, particularly from Leyte, seeking for a temporary stop of their return to their hometowns.
Mayors have also complained that their limited resources are also being drained with the return of these individuals as they have to maintain the quarantine facility and provide them their daily meals.
Cerro added that they already made an appeal to local officials to stop subjecting the returning residents for RT-PCR test but instead immediately isolate them in a facility for 14 days.
As of Friday, the region has about 563 COVID-19 cases.
(ROEL T. AMAZONA)