The newly designated director of the Police Regional Office XI vows to intensify the campaign on cleansing and eliminating erring cops in the region.
Chief Supt. Marcelo Morales, the newly designated regional director replaced Chief Supt. Manuel Gaerlan, who has reached his mandatory retirement age today, Aug. 18.
The general order, effective August 16, came from the national headquarters by PNP chief Oscar Albayalde.
The order was received by the Police Regional Office 11 last Aug. 15.
Prior to his designation, Morales was the director of Police Regional Office 12. He was also assigned as deputy regional director for administration (DRDA) of PSupt. Manuel Gaerlan.
Morales in his inaugural speech, said he was glad to return to the Police Regional Office 11 and thanked PNP chief Albayalde for the trust and confidence in handling the regional office.
“I will continue the fight against criminality (and) hunt down the most wanted person,” he said, adding that “one less criminal is one less crime on the street.”
“I will continue to intensify the cleansing of the PNP personnel and eliminate the bad cops,” he further said.
In an interview at the sidelines of the ceremony, Morales said it is very challenging to replace a good performing regional director.
Morales said he will continue the campaign against illegal drugs, criminality and terrorism and internal cleansing in the regional office.
“(The) first thing to do is to meet all my officers and commanders so that we can review the programs done here and to assess how it can be improved,” he said.
He will also assess the performance of the commanders if a revamp would be applied and if needed, they will be replaced to another position.
In the meantime, Chief Supt. Eliseo Rasco, is designated as the acting regional director of Police Regional Office 12.
PNP chief Albayalde was the guest of honor and speaker during the turn over ceremony held at Camp Quintin Merecido, Catitipan, Buhangin district.
Albayalde said Morales was chosen based on the senior officers board and oversight committee or Board of Generals who deliberated on the posts of the commanders on the ground.
“We have seen that Gen. Morales has a good performance in the previous region and, he was a formerly assigned to Davao City. It’s really very important that the next director is not new to the President,” he added.
He said that they expect him to perform well, based on his track record while he was the PRO 12 director.
Albayalde reiterated that his order to Morales is to “work and work and do what is proper.”
Outgoing PRO director Gaerlan said his significant accomplishments during his stint as regional director was a decrease in total crime volume from 33, 868 crime incidents to 25,407 in 2016 or an average of 25 percent.
With President Rodrigo Duterte and with the help of AFP and other law enforcement offices, from January to July 2018, crime was reduced to 34 percent compared to the same period last year.
In 2018 alone, the eight focus crimes or the crimes against persons and properties including carnapping and rape were reduced to 40 percent compared to the past year.
In the same manner, the crime rate of 58 in 2015 was reduced to 42 in 2016 and further fell to 31 in 2017.
For the past two years, a total of 46.55 percent reduction of crime rate was reported.
He also said based on the figures released by the NEDA, the economy of the region grew by 9.5 percent in 2016 and 10.9 percent in 2017, making it the second fastest region in the country in terms of growth.
From the recent data of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), tourist arrivals in this part of the country grew from 3 million to 3.238 million in 2017.
For the first time in two years, he said Davao city’s tourist arrivals reached the 2 million mark in 2017.
“This only shows that visitors feel safe and protected in the region despite the adverse reports projected especially after the declaration of Martial law by the President,” he said.
As PRO XI’s contribution on the anti-illegal drug campaign of the PNP, the region conducted more than 4,000 anti-illegal drug operations and arrested more than 3,700 persons from April 1, 2016 to July 31, 2018.
During his term, they have completed construction of more than 22 buildings including construction of 21 police stations.
The construction of Davao Occidental Police Provincial Office is almost 5 percent completed, the regional mobile force battalion (RMFB) has already started last month.
In the past two years, they have received 421 patrol vehicles, 894 motorcycles, 12 watercraft, 96 submachine guns, 6,285 pistols, 3,096 rifles in various equipment and supply to improve our capability to deliver better services to the people.
