By Glazyl Y. Masculino
BACOLOD City – The Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office (Nocppo) here is validating reports about two police officers who are allegedly engaged in cockfighting in two separate municipalities.
Police Colonel Romeo Baleros, Nocppo director, said on Monday that he received text messages about the accusations against the two identified policemen, whose presence were sighted in cockpit arenas.
Baleros, however, refused to provide their identities while monitoring is ongoing.
Baleros said he dispatched intelligence operatives to verify the information through photos and actual footage of their illegal gambling activity. “We need a strong evidence for the filing of administrative charges against them,” he added.
He added said that it is very important to conduct validation first because there are many reports reaching 8888 hotline for complaints against policemen.
“We treat those information seriously.”
Despite the two monitored policemen, Baleros said that majority of policemen in the province are submissive to the order of Philippine National Police (PNP) chief General Archie Francisco Gamboa.
Gamboa earlier warned police officers to keep away from vices, including engaging in cockfighting, which is considered an illegal gambling activity.
“If there’s a report of any involvement in any form of illegal gambling, the full force of the law will be applied against them,” Baleros said, adding that it is a clear violation of the enhanced revitalized internal cleansing program of the PNP.
He said they will be placed under investigation and will be sanctioned administratively if proven guilty with the offense.
Last week, the Integrity Monitoring and Enforcement Group (IMEG) arrested Police Major Melvin Madrona, chief of Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) here and his alleged cohort inside a cockpit arena at Barangay Mansilingan here on Feb 27, 2020 for alleged robbery extortion. Both were released from police custody on Saturday after each of them posted P100,000-bail.
