AFTER Benguet Gov. Nestor Fongwan said the provincial police did well in preparing for Typhoon “Lando” last week, police officers slammed Interior Secretary Mel Sarmiento for blaming provincial police chief Sr. Supt. David Lacdan for the number of deaths due to the storm.
“Pati ba naman bagyo kasalanan ng PNP [Even typhoons are the fault of the PNP]?,” the group Police Officer for Genuine Transformations, consisting of police officials all over the country.
The group said Lacdan “was hanged for a fault not his own,” adding that forced evacuations are not really under the jurisdiction of the police, but the municipal and provincial disaster offices.
“The mayor or governor should be accountable for any neglect in the implementation of DILG’s Operation ‘Listo,’ which aims to implement precautionary measures and mitigate the impact of an incoming weather disturbance,” the POGT said.
But even Fongwan admitted that the high number of casualties in the province during the typhoon was “beyond our control.”
“In fairness to the police, they did their work very well,” Fongwan said on Thursday after he criticized the decision to relieve Lacdan for purported inefficiency in preparing for Lando which killed 14 people in Benguet alone.
Benguet was among the provinces hardly hit by Lando after it whipped Aurora province damaging thousands of houses and isolating several provinces, including Nueva Ecija, Bulacan and Pangasinan.
The sacking of Lacdan was similar to the circumstances behind the relieved of Eastern Visayas regional director Chief Supt. Elmer Soria in the aftermath of Ylando that struck in the region in January 25, 2013 that claimed the lives of thousands of residents.
Soria was sacked from his post for declaring that as many as 10,000 people died in Tacloban City because of Super Typhoon “Yolanda.”
Malacañang had criticized Soria for giving “official figures” on the wake of the deadly typhoon and was also summoned by then PNP chief Alan Purisima to explain the basis of his pronouncement.
However, weeks later Soria was ordered reinstated but not to his previous post, but would occupy a position in Camp Crame.
In the case of Lacdan, the POGT said Sarmiento should have studied the disaster preparedness manual for local chief executives before axing the provincial police chief.
“If there was an order for a forced evacuation and the [provincial director] failed to lift a hand, then that would indeed warrant his relief. But [Lacdan] did his best to evacuate the people in the landslide prone area. Unfortunately he cannot predict disasters or any other force majuere,” said the POGT.