EDITORIAL - City Hall, police need harmonious coexistence

It’s good that the National Police Commission has restored Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s control over the city police force. For this means that Osmeña can now resume whatever support he is extending to the Cebu City Police Office. 

We can now expect the police to further intensify the campaign against crimes, especially the illegal drug trade, in the city considering that Osmeña is 100 percent behind them.

Few months ago, Osmeña decided to stop extending the city’s financial support to the CCPO following a series of revamps that affected his trusted police officials, who were transferred to other areas in the country.

Osmeña did not like the fact that the director of the Police Regional Office-7, Chief Superintendent Patrocinio Comendador, and some city police officials were relieved by Camp Crame and were given new assignments outside Central Visayas.

Even before he assumed the mayoralty post following his victory in the May 9 elections, Osmeña had already started giving financial reward to the city policemen who were able to neutralize criminals, saying he wanted to restore the city’s peace and order image that was badly damaged during the previous administration.

But things have gone wrong when the Philippine National Police leadership implemented a national revamp amid the heightened drive against the worsening illegal drug trade in the country, with his trusted police officials and the favorite PNP security escort re-assigned outside Cebu.

With the recent development, however, Osmeña can now have peace of mind and can sleep well at night knowing that he has finally returned to his previous position of having full control over the city police. 

It is a known fact that in order to effectively solve the peace and order problem in a locality, a harmonious coexistence between the local government and the police is needed. This is because the latter cannot certainly win in the fight against criminality alone without the full support of the former.