THE rank-and-file employees of the National Police Commission (Napolcom) central office have protested the holding of what they call a luxurious six-day conference in Iloilo City by the agency’s top officials.

The employees complained that the “extravagant” conference is being held amid the rank and file having worked under what they claim as “inhuman conditions” in the past three months owing to poor maintenance of their air-conditioning system. An employee in Napolcom’s Personnel and Administrative Service (PAS) said they were informed that the situation would last until November.

Isidro Siriban, PAS director, could not be reached for comment as he already left for Iloilo.

In the five-story building of Napolcom on Senator Gil Puyat Avenue in Makati City, only the fifth floor has an air-conditioning system, leaving the remaining four floors under intense heat in this summer season.

“The commissioners are telling us that Napolcom has no budget for this [repair of the air-conditioning system], but can’t they make some adjustments in the budget? The government would understand if the money for that [Iloilo] conference is diverted to the use of government facilities,” another employee from the legal service said.

The employees said Napolcom commissioners Celia Leones and Miguel Coronel, and Lourdes Aniceto, acting deputy executive, led the 35 central and regional officials and employees in their second quarterly management conference at the Iloilo Grand Hotel from April 16 to 21.

Leones, in a written order, directed the listed Napolcom officials and employees to attend the management conference.

Leones’s directive also said the “traveling expenses of Central Office officials and personnel shall be chargeable against Central Office funds while traveling expenses of regional participants shall be chargeable against their respective regional allotments.”

“How much government money [have] they spent again? Some of them would be proceeding to Boracay after the conference,” said a disgruntled employee, who is part of an organized group of employees raising their grievances.

Senate panel backs scrapping of oil E-VAT

INSTEAD of suspending or lowering the percentage of the 12-percent value-added tax (VAT) on crude oil products in the face of rising domestic prices of essentials, the Consumer and Oil Price Watch (COPW) suggested that VAT collections from oil imports be used to help the poor.

CHIEF Justice Reynato Puno on Thursday denied reports that he is contemplating to take an early retirement allegedly owing to his “frustration”

THE National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Thursday filed rice manipulation and hoarding charges against five Chinese nationals, three of them arrested in separate operations in Isabela province on Wednesday,

THE rank-and-file employees of the National Police Commission (Napolcom) central office have protested the holding of what they call a luxurious six-day conference in Iloilo City by the agency’s top officials.

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) has scrapped the planned automation of the polls in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) after bidders failed to comply with some of its technical requirements.

DIRECTOR General Avelino Razon Jr., National Police chief, ordered on Thursday the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) to further intensify its operations against individuals and groups involved in human trafficking.