Police chief forbids cops from carrying umbrellas for VIPs

MANILA: Philippine National Police (PNP) chief General Rommel Marbil has ordered a stop to police officers carrying umbrellas for VIPs.

Marbil issued his directive Monday, noting that such an act is not part of a police officer’s job as it is degrading for a man in uniform.

“I want to bring back the dignity of our uniform,” Marbil said in a speech after a flag ceremony in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

“I am now prohibiting that, every time we have an anniversary, we see police in uniform, especially those with the rank of corporal or those in lower ranks, carrying umbrellas,” he added.

“That’s not right. That’s not the job of the police. Let’s respect our uniform. Let’s show that we are a people with dignity, and not a mere person. We are police, not a bodyguard, not a driver, and not a helper. We are not paid lackeys, we are police,” Marbil also stressed.

The PNP previously received flak over matters concerning the treatment of VIPs.

In May, nine officials and members of the PNP’s Special Action Force were sacked after two of them were found moonlighting as bodyguards of a Chinese VIP.

Months before that, a police officer was relieved for stopping traffic flow at a busy intersection along Commonwealth Avenue for an unidentified VIP. But the police officer was later reinstated as Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte argued that “rank-and-file personnel should not be the scapegoats for the higher-up’s accountability. It should be the one who ordered him to stop the traffic flow that should be investigated.”

It also turned out that the involved police officer stopped the traffic flow because he mistakenly heard the word “VP” and assumed Vice President Sara Duterte was the VIP. – Philippine Daily inquirer/ANN