Lifestyle checks part of review of PNP officials who file courtesy resignations
MANILA, Philippines — Police colonels and generals will go through a lifestyle check as part of the Philippine National Police's effort to remove those in their ranks with links to illegal drugs, according to Police Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr., PNP chief, in a radio report.
A report on Super Radyo dzBB quotes Azurin as saying a lifestyle check is among the ways the five-member panel responsible for reviewing police officials' records will evaluate whose courtesy resignations will be accepted and whose will be rejected.
In a separate UNTV report on Monday, Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong — a former police general and so far the only member of the panel whose name has been made public — also said a lifestyle check would be part of the screening process.
"We will be evaluating the information, [conducting] due diligence [and] screening," he said partly in Filipino. "I think that is what will happen, but the details on the actual process will have to wait."
He said that actual guidelines have yet to be handed down but the panel will be expected "to screen, to evaluate, to validate" police officials' records.
A lifestyle check, according to the website of the Office of the Ombudsman, which used to conduct them, is an "investigation strategy developed by anti-corruption agencies to determine the existence of ill-gotten and unexplained wealth" of government officials and employees.
Unexplained wealth, according to the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, "is an amount of property and/or money manifestly out of proportion to [an official's] salary and to other lawful income."
Under Joint Resolution No.1 raising the base pay of uniformed personnel, police colonels were paid at least P80,583 a month in 2019 while general officer earned between P91,058 to P149,785 a month depending on their rank.
Apart from the Ombudsman, government agencies like the National Bureau of Investigation and the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission — when it was still active — are authorized to conduct lifestyle checks, which former PACC head Greco Belgica said is "important in at least in determining, in preventing corruption in government."
Despite initial resistance from some police officials, close to 600 high-ranking officials have so far submitted their versions of the courtesy resignations that Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos told them to send.
President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. has supported the call, saying it was part of the government's plans for its campaign against illegal drugs.
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