SENATORS Grace Poe and Risa Hontiveros yesterday welcomed the plan of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) to assign female police officers as front desk staff to replace their male counterparts.
Poe said creating a dedicated space for women as front desk officers can be a “potential solution” to the underreporting and under-recording of gender-based violence.
“We know women to be more compassionate and more approachable, yet tough and determined. This should not stop the NCRPO, however, from continuously exerting efforts to make the male members of the police force more gender-sensitive,” Poe said.
She said having female cops as front desk officers is good but at the end of the day, good cops “will bolster the faith of people in the justice system and close the gap between communities and the police.”
Hontiveros said more women in any organization is a most welcome move, especially in the PNP which is male dominated.
“Sana nga lang ay hindi i-type cast o limitahan ng posisyong ‘customer relations’ ang ating mga babaeng pulis (I just hope that policewomen will not be type cast or be limited as customer relations [officers]),” Hontiveros said.
Given enough chance, Hontiveros said women can excel in many roles and “I still look forward to the first women PNP chief.”
“I also hope that women already in the police force can help steer the PNP towards a more humane, inclusive, and rights-based standard of conduct. Tulong-tulong tayong mga babae (Women should help one another),” she said.
Police Maj. General Edgar Alan Okubo on Friday said he plans to remove male officers from front desk duties and replace them with women who shall be called “customer relations officers” because women are more patient and sympathetic.
Okubo said the change in assignments was an offshoot of the negative feedbacks received by the NCRPO on male front desk officers as reported to him by the regional intelligence divisions.
He said the men who will be relieved from their duties as front desk officers and will be added to the police who have been deployed to increase police visibility, especially at night.
He said the changes would still be experimental and to be applied only in 45 police stations in the NCRPO’s five district — 16 in Quezon City, 14 in the Manila Police District, seven in the Southern Police District, and four each in the Northern and Eastern police district.
