PNP said they will help cops affected by Taal eruption

January 27, 2020

The Philippine National Police (PNP) on Monday said their morale and welfare policy ensures that appropriate assistance will be given cops who were affected by the phreatic eruption of Taal Volcano.

Police Brigadier General Bernard Banac, PNP spokesperson, said Police General Archie Francisco Gamboa instructed the PNP Housing Board to facilitate the relocation of personnel residing within the Taal volcano danger zone into safer off-base housing projects within the region.

“Because several of our own police personnel were themselves victims of this tragedy, the PNP morale and welfare policy ensures that appropriate assistance is extended to them,” Banac said.

He said they are accounting all affected police officers to find out who is willing to be relocated in other areas in Calabarzon (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon) region or outside the region.

“We are still gathering data for now to find out who is willing to be relocated on any places in Calabarzon or outside the region,” Banac said.

“Those who are within the 7-kilometer danger zone, they are less than 50 PNP personnel affected but we are still finding out how many were affected,” he added.

Earlier, Gamboa said they will give P10,000 assistance for police personnel who were affected by the incident.

Banac said they also identified one affected police station in the municipality of San Nicolas.

Banac said police officers assigned in that station abandoned the building during the volcano's continuous activity.

“Temporarily they are deployed on control points and their admin office is currently at Batangas Provincial Police Office… Right now, there is still no concrete direction on where they will be relocated,” he said.

He said affected police personnel continue to do their job in securing  residents in the province.

Asked if they will decrease the number of  deployed policemen, Banac said it will depend on the advisory from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).

“If the threat is already gone and the alert level (is) lower then we can return back to the normal deployment and even those who are assigned in (the town of) Laurel and Agoncillo can perform their normal functions,” he said.

Banac said even as some areas within the 7-kilometer danger zone around Taal volcano remain under lockdown, a sizable contingent of PNP troops remain on the ground to assist local governments in facilitating the orderly return of residents into evacuated communities. 

“The PNP will make available its personnel and resources for the massive clean-up effort that will welcome residents as they return to their homes to rebuild their lives,” he said.

“The PNP stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our distressed countrymen during those trying times, and we will remain by their side on their road to complete recovery from this setback,” he added. Ella Dionisio/DMS