Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff General Eduardo A?o told policemen who will be sent to southern Philippines that it is their chance to earn honor.

“Actually, they should take that positively. For us in the Armed Forces that is an opportunity to earn the Medal of Valor award. That’s 25 thousand to 75 thousand monthly gratuity (pay),” he told reporters after the AFP-Philippine National Police (PNP) Joint Peace and Security Coordinating Council (JPSCC) meeting in Camp Aguinaldo Thursday.

“What’s wrong being assigned in Basilan and Sulu? If you want to serve the country and the persons, that’s the best way. Now, if they are complaining then you can see the quality of these people that you do not need in the organization,” he added.

PNP Director General Ronald Dela Rosa challenged more than 300 policemen that will be assigned to southern Philippines to resign if they don’t want to follow the directives of the president.

“Even if they don’t have offense there is no problem bringing them to Basilan, because they took oath as members of the PNP not Quezon City police only, so not Manila Police only. They can be assigned anywhere in the Philippines so even if they have offenses or not we have the prerogative as mandated by law that they can be deployed anywhere in the Philippines. So what’s the fuzz about it?,” he said.

“How I wish they will just resign so I don’t need to borrow C-130 from the Armed Forces to bring them the Basilan,” he added.

“I don’t care if no one will remain. I care for quality, not for quantity. Go, you resign so that have to spend money and file cases against you. You resign, and continue with your evil ways, just resign so we will see each other,” Dela Rosa said.

He said aside from creating a task force to clean their ranks the PNP is coordinating with the military that will help them in their internal cleaning as ordered by the president.

Dela Rosa said the military is giving intelligence information to the PNP about scalawag policemen.

“If they have information regarding rogue policemen, the information about the erring policemen that we don’t know, they will pass that to us. Then we will act on that appropriately,” he said. Robina Asido/DMS