Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia has referred infrastructure funding for the construction of police offices/station in the province to the House of Representatives.

This came after Garcia received several requests from the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) for their police offices or stations to have permanent police stations within municipal hall compounds.

“I will refer this matter to Deputy Speaker Pablo John Garcia and House Committee on Visayas Development Rep. Vincent Duke Frasco as the funding for police infrastructures are being decided in the General Appropriations Act (GAA),” she said.

Earlier, in his resolution adopted en masse, Sixth District Provincial Board Member Thadeo Ouano disclosed that there are at least 20 police stations in the 44 towns of the province that are either “squatters” or with dilapidated police stations.

Garcia said that with her experience in Congress, there are plenty of funds allotted in the construction of police offices in the National Treasury and in the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

Garcia had a bittersweet relationship with the Philippine National Police, particularly in 2012 when she was illegally suspended and the Police Regional Office-7 led by then Regional Director General Marcelo Garbo turned the provincial capitol into a garrison.