Public Safety Office chiefs lobby for passage of PSO law

By Jason B. Neola

A group consisting of public safety officers from various local government units in different cities and municipalities is lobbying for the passage of a national law that will define the role, mandates, and structure of all Public Safety Offices (PSOs) in the country.

Naga City PSO Executive Director Renne Gumba said that among the major concerns of the group is for the House of Representatives to enact a law that will institutionalize the establishment and operation of PSOs across the country, including giving a uniform official name for the PSO and the professionalization of PSO personnel.

“We wish that by that law, we shall be guided also what training program to adopt or what specific trainings we need to undergo just like the Philippine National Police. It [the law] must contain also set of rules for creation of plantilla positions and conditions to be adopted in hiring, promoting or even dismissal of employee or personnel from service,” he said.

Gumba also mentionede the possibility of establishing a PSO Academy by the national government.

He said the group whose members are working in different LGUs situated in different provinces like Isabela and Batangas is now bent on encouraging and convincing their respective congressmen to explore or look into the possibility of filing a bill for that purpose.

Gumba said once such a law is enacted, PSOs will be institutionalized like other law enforcement agencies.

In Naga, the PSO, which was created during the term of the late DILG Secretary Jesse M. Robredo in 2005 as city mayor, has four major functions: traffic management, ordinance enforcement, civil security, and emergency communications.