Dagupan city: The Dagupan City Police Station has been upgraded to a city police office to better serve its population of about 187,000, which triples during daytime. Col. Orly Pagaduan, officer-in-charge city director, said on Wednesday that the city’s growing population and status as a highly urbanized and independent chartered city qualified it for the upgrade.
According to Philippines News Agency, the upgrade was approved in September by the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the National Police Commission following a request from the city government through a resolution. “So, through the initiation of the local government unit, because they really need to strengthen the police force and increase it because of the large population,” he said in an interview.
He added that the population grows during daytime as people travel to the city from neighboring towns for work, business, and school. Pagaduan explained that while both a police station and a police office perform similar peace and order functions, the latter has more personnel and specialized units. A city police office is required to have around 1,000 uniformed and 30 non-uniformed personnel. Dagupan currently has only about 25 percent of the needed manpower.
“When you become a city police office, there are other support units. You have the Crime Lab, Traffic Enforcement Unit, City Mobile Force Company. You have the City Mobile Police Unit. All of these will be added. Technical and other specified units of the Philippine National Police are already there. It will function like a provincial office,” he said. Plans are underway to establish a one-hectare police camp to serve as the main headquarters, with six police stations to cover the city’s 31 barangays in clusters.
For now, operations are supported by sub-stations and community precincts, while efforts are ongoing to improve facilities and equipment. Police visibility has also been increased, and services such as police clearance issuance and blotter recording will soon be brought closer to barangays, particularly those on the islands.
