WITH better pay in store for them, around 11,300 additional policemen will be recruited by the Philippine National Police this year to further beef up its visibility and help arrest street crimes and terrorism, PNP chief Director General Raul M. Bacalzo said yesterday.
Bacalzo said he has already opened the recruitment of more than 8,000 policemen nationwide last February. As part of the continuing recruitment process, another 3,000 will be recruited before December.
With President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino’s Labor Day announcement that starting June 1, all employees and officials of the government will be getting the third tranche of their salary increase pursuant to the Salary Standardization Law, Gen. Bacalzo said they expect a Police Officer 1 to bring home a monthly gross salary of around P18,000.
He called on college graduates dreaming of becoming a police officer to join the PNP recruitment program which he said has been revised to see to it that only the best recruits will join the force.
“We are inviting those who are eligible to apply. We need qualified applicants particularly at this time when the police-to-population ratio is very low, around one cop for every 800 citizens,” he said. The ideal police-to-population ratio in the country is one cop for every 500 citizens, he explained.
Bacalzo emphasized that their new recruitment program will ensure that only the psychologically-fit recruits will be allowed to join the police training.
He said his recommendation for the National Police Commission to conduct a thorough review of the PNP recruitment process was approved by the policy-making body.
