Sinas to lead drive vs overweight cops

MANILA, Philippines — Members of the Metro Manila police will start shedding excess weight as part of the Philippine National Police (PNP)’s campaign against obese officers, an official announced yesterday.

“We would launch the program maybe next week so people would know that the PNP is serious about weight loss, especially me,” Maj. Gen. Debold Sinas, director of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), said during flag-raising rites at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig.

Sinas, who earlier said he was willing to step down from his post over his weight, vowed to lead by example, warning police officers who doubted his capability to lose weight of consequences should they be the ones unable to slim down.

PNP chief Gen. Archie Gamboa has ordered overweight police officers to be barred from attending training and other schooling for career advancement and promotion.

The measure would be carried out based on a policeman’s body mass index, which is a person’s weight in kilos divided by the square of height in meters. A high BMI can indicate a high level of body fat.

Sinas said police officers who are unable to meet the required BMI by April 1 would be attending summer camp where they would be trained by Special Action Force commandos to reduce weight.

“Those who say I cannot shed weight, make sure you get the right BMI before me because I’m telling you, by April 1 and there are still no positive results, we would all be attending summer camp,” he said. “There would be free food and free accommodation. So there is no valid reason not to participate.”

Citing PNP data, Gamboa said that almost half of the country’s 190,000-strong police force are overweight, with only 102,600 police officers or 54 percent at their ideal weight. Nine percent or 17,100 are obese. The rest are overweight.