President Aquino is Not Part of PNP Chain of Command, Says Evardone

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone on Monday said finding President Benigno Aquino III to have broken the chain of command in the Mamasapano incident is a military concept.

Evardone said that the 1987 Constitution has clearly separated the police force from the armed forces, which was merged during the Martial Law years.

“The chain-of-command concept is a military concept also applied to the police force during the martial law era because the Integrated National Police (INP) at the time was under the command and control of then ‘Commander-in-Chief’ President (Ferdinand) Marcos,” Evardone, a stalwart of the ruling Liberal Party said.

According to the Visayan solon, during the Martial Law years, the President Marcos merged the Philippine Constabulary with all police organizations nationwide and created the Philippine Constabulary-Integrated National Police (PC-INP) which was what then Gen. Fidel Ramos, former President, headed for a long time until EDSA came about.

“The Constabulary was one of the service commands of the AFP (the Army, Air Force, and Navy). Thus, the PC-INP (the police for that matter) became a part of the military establishment and imbibed a military mindset with military chain of command,” Evardone said.

The LP stalwart said that under the present constitutional setting, separate provisions have been laid out for the military and police precisely to underscore the separation.

“Now, the Armed Forces is composed only of the Army, Air Force and Navy service commands, while there is only one police force which is clearly characterized as civilian,” Evardone said.

“The President is not the ‘Commander-in-Chief’ of the PNP because the PNP does not have a commander in chief. And that’s because the PNP is part of the civilian government. But like any other civilian department of agency of government, the President is the PNP head as President, not as Commander-in-Chief,” Evardone said.

He said the PNP, being civilian in character, is covered by rules of civil service, not the military style chain of command.

“So, even if the PNP follows a ‘chain of command’ in its operations manual, the President is not part of that chain of command as commander. The ‘chain of command’ is internal to the PNP organization. Thus, the President may deal with the PNP in the same manner that he deals with all departments and other agencies of government, directly or indirectly as he sees fit, being the Chief Executive,” Evardone said. (PNA) RMA/SFM