Newly-installed Police regional director, Brig. Gen. Nicolas Torre III at the assumption of post on Sunday, 16 June 2024 at Camp Rolindo Soguilon in Catitipan, Davao City. MindaNews photo by IAN CARL ESPINOSA
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 08 July) – Nineteen station commanders of the Davao City Police Office (DCPO) have been relieved in a reshuffle as of Monday, July 8, 22 days after BGen Nicolas Torre took over as Police Regional Office-Region 11 (PRO-11) regional director.
In a phone interview, PRO-11 spokesperson Catherine Dela Rey said the 19 station commanders will be replaced by personnel from police provincial offices and the regional headquarters.
“This move is part of the duty or work of the regional director to assign or reassign officers,” Dela Rey told MindaNews in a phone interview Monday afternoon.
“There is no political motivation, this is part of our reshuffling,” the spokesperson added.
Out of these station commanders, 18 are “acting station commanders” while one of them will be an “officer-in-charge”.
Dela Rey also confirmed that Colonel Romel Soguilon is still DCPO’s officer-in-charge in the meantime.
“But because Soguilon is currently on leave, the temporary officer-in-charge of DCPO is Police Colonel Lito Patay,” she said in the vernacular.
Soguilon’s retention was also clarified by DCPO spokesperson Hazel Tuazon in a statement sent to the media Monday morning, saying Patay was not yet assigned as city director.
“Negative pa po si Patay (Patay’s city director assignment is negative),” according to Tuazon’s Facebook messenger message sent to reporters Monday morning.
Media reports in Davao City as early as Saturday said that Patay, who was operations officer of the PRO-11 and previously the provincial director of the Davao del Norte Police Provincial Office, will start on Monday [as city director].
However, Dela Rey said Patay will just temporarily take over the workload of Suguilon, who has served as the officer-in-charge of the DCPO since May 23 this year.
Suguilon will also remain as the PRO-11 Deputy Regional Director for Operations.
“It’s the city mayor who will choose the city director, he will be given three names to choose from,” Dela Rey said.
Patay was the Batasan Station 6 chief and later the chief of police of the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) during former president Rodrigo Duterte’s time. He then became the director of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Central Visayas.
Four weeks ago, members of the House of Representatives probed Patay for the Duterte era “drug war” killings.
During the House hearing, Patay denied alleged abuses during his stint as the QCPD chief, saying “they only did their job” as police “to defend themselves”. (Ian Carl Espinosa/MindaNews)
