The provincial police office here is expecting 70 more policemen to be added in the Province this month to augment the newly-formed Tourist Police.
The addition of more policemen was made possible by the inclusion of Negros Oriental in the Department of Tourism list of 14 provinces to have the Tourism-Oriented Police Community-Oriented Protection (TOP-COP) program.{{more}}
The additional cops will augment the 50 local cops who underwent the DOT training for the TOP-COP program last month.
“These policemen who went through the training will be assigned in major tourist areas in the province and they will be dedicated for tourists only. They cannot be pulled out to join internal security operations,” said Provincial Police Director Col. Rey Lyndon Lawas.
The tourist assistance police units will later on operate independently as a stand-alone unit. “They will be separated from other territorial police units, although they will be directly under the control of the provincial police director,” said Lawas.
Lawas welcomed the additional cops in the provincial police force as the creation of tourist police assistance units have further compounded the police office’s lack of security manpower.
“We will just double our efforts,” stressed Lawas as he called on the community to support his office by avoiding getting involved in crimes. “This alone is already a big help to us,” he added.
With the province’s nightime population pegged at 1.3 million, the current police to civilian ratio is 1 cop for every 1,300, a far cry from the ideal ratio of one cop to 500 civilians. (RMN/PIA-7)
