Albayalde said the U.P. Police is having a hard time monitoring the whole Diliman campus. #UPPolice #PNP #Albayalde

Albayalde said the U.P. Police is having a hard time monitoring the whole Diliman campus.

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde on Thursday said that they are willing to train the security personnel of University of the Philippines (UP) campuses in the country to improve their intelligence gathering and anti-crime capability.

Albayalde made the remark in a press briefing at the PNP headquarters at Camp Crame, Quezon City in response to Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chairman Dr. Prospero de Vera’s admission that there are problems on illegal drugs, extremism and other crimes in some UP campuses.

“No less than the chair of the CHED said na talagang may problema doon sa loob [that there is a problem] especially the proliferation of illegal drugs. And we have reports not only in UP Diliman but also in UP Los Baños where there are incidents of robberies, petty crimes and even rape na hindi nare-report sa atin [which has not been reported],” Albayalde said.

Albayalde said the U.P. Police is having a hard time monitoring the whole Diliman campus.

“And even here in U.P. Diliman, it’s a big] compound but that is no excuse that there is proliferation of illegal drugs there so how can they monitor?,” Albayalde said.

“They are not intelligence trained, these people, and they don’t even have a police power to investigate and to file cases,” he added. “It’s only the PNP that has police power to investigate and to file charges. So they need our help. And this is not militarization again. We are not saying that there is militarization here.”

Albayalde said the PNP will conduct a series of small group discussions with the UP Police to determine the problems and campus they need to engage. He said it is best to have the training done in PNP facilities because UP has no facility.

“It’s better that they come here. We have better facilities here,” Albayalde said.

The PNP chief further said they already laid the guidelines for the conduct of the training including a series of dialogues with administrators and student leaders of different schools.

Earlier, Albayalde held an informal talks with the security sector and academe to explore common ground where government and the academe can fulfill its respective mandates.

The PNP chief said they seek to build stronger collaboration among stakeholders to protect campuses against criminal activities, drug syndicates, and shadowy organizations that promote and espouse armed conflict against government thru force and violence.

De Vera, meanwhile, said both parties wanted to “find common ground on how we can work together,” as part of the CHED’s campaign for safe and healthy campuses, safe from crime and extremism.

Albayalde assured that the PNP only have the best interest of the youth backing their pure good intention to establish police presence in schools against crime, exploitation and abuse.

“We want to increase police visibility enough to deter criminal or drug syndicates from preying on students, all for the greater good of national priorities to enforce the law, ensure student and public safety which are the mandated duties of the police,” he said.