Philippine Constabulary
This article needs additional citations for verification. (June 2020) |
Philippine Constabulary Hukbóng Pamayapà ng Pilipinas | |
---|---|
Motto | Always outnumbered but never outfought! Isang Bansa, Isang Diwa (One Nation, One Spirit) |
Agency overview | |
Formed | August 8, 1901 |
Dissolved | January 29, 1991 |
Jurisdictional structure | |
National agency | Philippines |
Operations jurisdiction | Philippines |
Population | 90,000 (1991) |
General nature | |
Specialist jurisdiction |
|
The Philippine Constabulary (PC;
History
The Philippine Constabulary (PC) was established on August 18, 1901, under the general supervision of the
The constabulary assisted the United States military in combating the remaining irreconcilable revolutionaries following the March 23 capture of General Emilio Aguinaldo and his April 1 pledge of allegiance to the United States. This phase of the Philippine–American War ended in Luzon by 1906, with the surrender and execution of one of its last remaining generals, Macario Sakay.
Continued disorder and
The
Philippine Military Academy
A school for the constabulary was established on February 17, 1905, at the Santa Lucia barracks in Intramuros.[5] In 1908, the school was transferred to Baguio.[5] In 1915 the school was renamed Academy for Officers of the Philippine Constabulary.[6][7] In 1928, the school was renamed the Philippine Constabulary Academy.[6][8] When the Philippine Army was created in 1936, the institution became the Philippine Military Academy. The school is the main source of regular officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which before 1991 included those of the Philippine Constabulary.
Camp Crame
In 1935, a large tract of land was acquired in New Manila Heights, now part of
Reorganized as a military organization
Under the
The move to abolish the national police force and to make it a nucleus of a Philippine Army got underway when the Army of the Philippines was created in 1936. Thus, the transfer of the PC to the regular force of the new military organization was effected under the provisions of Sec. 18 of the National Defense Act, and pursuant to Executive Order No. 11 of President Manuel L. Quezon dated January 11, 1936. The Constabulary was inactivated on this date and was known as the Constabulary Division, Philippine Army. The PC was not gone but got submerged in a bigger organization. Thereafter, the insular police duties, formally reposed in the PC, were discharged by a "State Police" created by Commonwealth Act No. 88 dated October 26, 1936.
After turning over the former Constabulary duties to a State Police, which proved to be short-lived and unsuccessful, the Constabulary was revived as a military police force on June 23, 1938, by Commonwealth Act No. 343. By operation of the CA 343, the State Police was abolished and its military police duties reverted to the PC. President Quezon himself recommended to the National Assembly that the State Police be abolished and in its place the PC was to be reconstituted into a separate organization, distinct and divorced from the Philippine Army, which was for "national defense".
The PC once again existed as an independent force retaining all duties in maintaining peace and order and protection of life and property. One of the most significant provisions of the law re-creating it was that which provided that officers and enlisted men detached from the army and transferred to the PC shall retain their identity and legal rights and obligations as officers and enlisted men of the army; that the president may, at his discretion, transfer at any time any officer or enlisted man to and from the army to the Constabulary, respectively; and that all services performed in the Constabulary shall count for all legal purposes as military service. Thus, began the linear roster of officers for both the Constabulary and the Armed forces up until the PC was merged with the Integrated National Police in 1991.
World War II
In May 1941, President
On October 15, the 1st PC Regiment was inducted into the
The 2nd and 3rd Regiments were inducted into the
War broke out on December 8, 1941. The two PC regiments less the 2nd Battalion of the 1st which was ordered to proceed to
By January 1942, most of the "constables" were in the Bataan peninsula with other Fil-American troops. "On
On December 29, the 4th PC Regiment was activated and constituted by PC units from the provinces of
. Two days later, the regiment was ordered to Bataan.To prevent the unnecessary slaughter of his war-weary troops, Maj. General
The Philippines was liberated late in 1944 and early in 1945. Thereafter, the problem of restoring peace and order from the general chaos and disorder arising from the war came up. The Constabulary went on active service with the Philippine Commonwealth Army under President
Bureau of Constabulary
After the fall of Manila, the Japanese established the Bureau of Constabulary as the Filipino national police force using former officers from the Philippine Constabulary. Jose de los Reyes was appointed director on February 5, 1943.[10] He was succeeded by Guillermo B. Francisco on April 11, 1943 and Paulino Santos in August 1944.[11][12]
According to Robert Lapham, an American officer who had headed to the jungles to fight instead of obeying General MacArthur's order to surrender and had become a guerrilla commander, constabulary chief Gen. Guillermo Francisco had been "de-Americanized" by the Japanese after the surrender of Bataan, after which, they "half trusted him to do their will".[13] Francisco and his men pursued "bandits and cut-throats, which was good in itself and which allowed them to look good to their Japanese overlords, but it was known among many of his officers and some outsiders as well that he and most of his men were just waiting for an opportune time to change sides."[14]
During the Japanese occupation, the enemy, through the use of force and threats, organized their version of the Philippine Constabulary which they called the Bureau of Constabulary; it was later renamed to match the pre-war Constabulary with the creation of the Second Republic.[15] A handful of former PC officers and men were rounded up and forced to work with this outfit,[16] with the threat that their loved ones would be harmed; majority of the men who escaped managed to find their way into the hills where they joined the resistance movement until liberation came in 1944.[16]
It is a fact that much of the stigma that haunted the PC was the result of the establishment by the Japanese of their version of the Constabulary. Many had the wrong impression that the occupation Constabulary was the same force as that of the pre-war organization.[citation needed]
Post war era
A major revamp in the Armed Forces was effected on March 30, 1950, when President Elpidio Quirino issued Executive Order No. 308 which called for the merger of the Philippine Constabulary with the Armed Forces, making it one more major service command. This was the second time the PC returned to a military force. Due to the unstable peace and order conditions existing in the countrysides brought about by the resurgence of the Hukbalahap (Huk) which require more personnel strength, the Philippine Army was called upon to assist in the pacification drive with the employment of its combat arms – the Battalion Combat Teams or BCTs, with PC men absorbed by the BCTs. It was under E.O. 308 and according to Administrative Order No. 113, dated April 1, 1950, the PC was formally merged with the Armed Forces of the Philippines; the merger was completed on July 27, the same year.[17] 12,000 men from the MPC to the PC.[18]
Under the E.O., the power of executive supervision and all authority and duties exercised by the Secretary of Interior concerning the PC or its members were transferred to and exercised by the Secretary of National Defense. With the appointment, on American advice, of former
The delineation of the missions of the then four major services – Philippine Army, Philippine Constabulary, Philippine Navy, and Philippine Air Force – were underlined by EO No. 389 dated December 23, 1950, which abolished the Philippine Service Command and the Philippine Ground Force. Headquarters Armed Forces of the Philippines became known as "General Headquarters, Armed Forces of the Philippines"; while General Headquarters, Philippine Constabulary became known as "Headquarters, Philippine Constabulary", the nomenclature it had in the prewar years. Also, the major commands were abolished and in their places were activated the four major services. As defined in Executive Order (E.O.) No. 389, the main function of the PC was maintaining peace and order within the country and to be the country's national police force even though it was a branch then of the military.
In the reorganization that followed, the four military areas created under EO No. 94, series 1947, were not altered substantially but were nevertheless placed under the administrative and operational control of the AFP General Headquarters.
Marcos martial law era
President Ferdinand Marcos sought to have a strong personal influence over the Armed Forces, including the PC, as soon as he became president in 1965,[20][21] [22]: "32" holding on to the portfolio of defense secretary in the first thirteen months of his presidency[23] to develop what scholars have noted to be "a patronage system within the defense establishment."[24] The portfolio afforded him direct interaction with the AFP's leadership, and to have a hand in the AFP's day-to-day operationalization.[25]
Upon the declaration of
In 1975, the PC officially integrated the nation's municipal and city police, fire and penitentiary services, which from 1974 onward formed the Integrated National Police, into the service, thus the PC became the Philippine Constabulary-Integrated National Police (PC-INP), as per the provisions of Presidential Decree 765, enacted on August 8 the same year, that formally fused the two services into one joint service, with joint command resting with the Chief of the PC.
Civilian
Marcos' hold on power was effectively broken once enough of the Military withdrew their support from him in February 1986.[40]
Post-Marcos era and dissolution
The need to assert
After the various
In 1991, it was determined that a new civilian Philippine National Police was to be formed by merging the Integrated National Police into the Philippine Constabulary, with the PC forming the basis as it had the more developed infrastructure. The PC was then removed from the Ministry of National Defense and eventually civilianized, as part of the Department of the Interior and Local Government, through attrition and recruitment of new personnel.
In 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte contemplated reviving the Constabulary to augment the manpower of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency,[44] with presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella announcing the planned revival.[45][needs update]
Missions and duties
The PC's missions were as follows:
- 1. To preserve peace and order and enforce the law throughout the country and also to arrest law violators and those who will violate such laws;
- 2. Inspectional supervision over, and undertake the training of, municipal and city level police forces, fire departments, and jail services;
- 3. To assist civil government and semi-government agencies in the accomplishment of their missions;
- 4. To perform home defense in rear areas and such other services as the chief of staff, AFP may direct.
The PC covered a very extensive range of diversified missions that through the years did not fall under its primary responsibilities. By express provision of law, the PC enforced the motor vehicle law, fishing and games law, the alien law for registration and fingerprinting, and anti-dummy law, and the nationalization of retail trade law. By direction of the president, it enforced the tenancy law, the law on scrap metal, iron and gold, a ban on slaughter of water buffalo or carabao, and other laws. By deputation, it enforced the immigration law, customs law, forestry law, quarantine law, election law, public service law, and amusement law and weight and standards on rice. As a civic function, it performed in conjunction with the SWA and the Red Cross disaster relief operations during natural calamities. The security of VIPs was a routine requirement for the constabulary.
Organization
The chief of the Philippine Constabulary was, from 1975 onward, also the director-general of the Integrated National Police (the municipal police, fire, and jail force for the larger towns and cities).
The PC was organized on similar lines to the army, and consisted of a General Staff located at its General Headquarters at Camp Crame, Manila, and 12 Regional Commands (under a regional director) consisting of 104 Provincial Commands (under a Provincial Commander); these controlled the 450 PC Companies which performed all the day-to-day military police work.
The Regions were based on the country's political regions and directly controlled the various
The PC used to have four Field Units or Command Zones (PCZs), each of which was headed by a Zone Commander (provinces are as of 1990):
- IPCZ – Abra, Aurora, Bataan, Batanes, Benguet, Bulacan, Cagayan, Ifugao, Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Isabela, Kalinga-Apayao, La Union, Mt. Province, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Tarlac and Zambales
- IIPCZ – Albay, Batangas, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Catanduanes, Cavite, Laguna, Marinduque, Mindoro Occidental, Mindoro Oriental, Palawan, Quezon, Rizal and Sorsogon
- IIIPCZ – Aklan, Antique, Bohol, Capiz, Cebu, Iloilo, Leyte and Southern Leyte, Masbate, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Romblon, Samar and Northern Samar and Siquijor
- IVPCZ – Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Basilan, Bukidnon, Camiguin, Cotabato, Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, Davao Oriental, Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Misamis Occidental, Misamis Oriental, Sulu, Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Tawi-Tawi, Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga del Sur
Ranks
Ranks of the PC followed those first of the United States Army and later on those used by the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Originally the PC used the ranks and insignia of the United States Army upon its foundation and in its latter years it was more modelled on Philippine Army but with branch-specific shoulder board and sleeve insignia.[citation needed]
Officers
Philippine Constabulary Rank (1950–1991) |
---|
General¹ |
Lieutenant General² |
Major General |
Brigadier General |
Colonel |
Lieutenant Colonel |
Major |
Captain |
First Lieutenant |
Second Lieutenant |
¹ – Can be attained if a PC officer was appointed as Chief of Staff, AFP
² – Can be attained if a PC officer was appointed as Vice Chief of Staff, AFP
Enlisted constables and NCOs
- Master Sergeant
- Technical Sergeant
- Staff Sergeant
- Sergeant
- Constable 1st Class
- Constable 2nd Class
- Constable
Headquarters organization
Headquarters Directorates:
- 1. Directorate for Personnel
- 2. Directorate for Human Resource and Doctrine Development
- 3. Directorate for Logistics,
- 4. Directorate for Research and Development
- 5. Directorate for Comptrollership,
- 6. Directorate for Plans,
- 7. Directorate for Police-Community Relations,
- 8. Directorate for Investigation and
- 9. Directorate for Special Staff
The Philippine Constabulary Rangers, or PC Rangers, were independent light infantry companies which served as a
Constabulary Headquarters directly controlled many other services needed at a national level such as the Special Action Force, Central Crime Laboratory, White Collar Crime Group, and Office of Special Investigations (which was a counter-intelligence group).[9][18]
The Constabulary also maintained the following units:
- PC/INP Air Unit
- Constabulary Boat Service[18]
- Crime and Forensic Labs[18]
- PC Metropolitan Command (METROCOM).[46]
- National Constabulary Investigations Service which acted in a similar way to the FBI before the NBI was reformed.[18]
References
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Country Studies. Federal Research Division.
- Citations
- ^ Worcester, Dean Conant (1921). The Philippines past and present, Volumes 1–2. The Macmillan Co. pp. 380–381. Retrieved August 17, 2012.
- ^ "Philippine National Police (PNP)". www.globalsecurity.org. Retrieved July 28, 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-983-47562-0.
Section 1. An Insular Constabulary is hereby established under the general supervision of the Civil Governor for better maintaining peace, law, and order in the various provinces of the Philippine Islands, organized, officered and governed as hereinafter set forth, which shall be known as the Philippines Constabulary.
- ^ Emerson 1996, p. 295.
- ^ a b Beltran 1996, p. 43
- ^ a b Beltran 1996, p. 44
- ^ Report, 1915 1916, p. 35
- ^ "AN ACT TO AMEND ACT NUMBERED TWENTY-SIX HUNDRED AND FIVE, ENTITLED "AN ACT PROVIDING FOR THE CREATION IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS OF AN ACADEMY FOR OFFICERS FOR THE PHILIPPINE CONSTABULARY."". lawyerly.ph. December 9, 1928.
- ^ a b "Philippines Philippine Constabulary - Flags, Maps, Economy, History, Climate, Natural Resources, Current Issues, International Agreements, Population, Social Statistics, Political System". www.photius.com.
- ^ "Appointments". Official Gazette. Vol. 1, no. 2. February 1942. p. 52. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
- ^ "Appointments and Designations". Official Gazette. Vol. 2, no. 4. April 1943. p. 397. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
- ^ "C. Advisory Board on Public Security". Status of the Philippine Puppet Government as of October 14, 1944. U.S. Strategic Services Office. 1944. p. 6. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
- ISBN 978-0-8131-1949-6.
- ^ Lapham & Norling 1996, pp. 78–79.
- ^ Salah Jubair. "The Japanese Invasion". Maranao.Com. Archived from the original on July 27, 2010. Retrieved February 23, 2011.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8131-0986-2. Retrieved February 24, 2011.
- ^ Ladwig (2014), pp. 29.
- ^ a b c d e f "history". June 17, 2008. Archived from the original on June 17, 2008.
- ^ Ladwig (2014), pp. 30–32.
- ^ OCLC 975223979.
- ^ a b "The military's obsession with UP: some historical notes". Vera Files. Retrieved August 2, 2021.
- ISBN 9780275941376.
- ^ Magno, Alexander R., ed. (1998). "Democracy at the Crossroads". Kasaysayan, The Story of the Filipino People Volume 9:A Nation Reborn. Hong Kong: Asia Publishing Company Limited.
- ISBN 9781421415161.
- ^ Berlin, Donald Lane (1982). Prelude to Martial Law: An Examination of Pre-1972 Philippine Civil-military Relations.
- ^ a b c "II: Political Change and Military Transmition in the Philippines, 1966 – 1989: From the Barracks to the Corridors of Power". Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. October 3, 1990. Retrieved July 30, 2021.
- ^ "Declaration of Martial Law". Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. Archived from the original on July 8, 2017. Retrieved September 9, 2018.
- ^ "Alfred McCoy, Dark Legacy: Human rights under the Marcos regime". Ateneo de Manila University. September 20, 1999.
- )
- ^ "3,257: Fact checking the Marcos killings, 1975-1985 - The Manila Times Online". www.manilatimes.net. April 12, 2016. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
- ^ "LOOK BACK: The Philippine Constabulary under Marcos". Rappler. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
- )
- ^ "REPORT OF AN AI MISSION TO THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES 1975".
- ^ Robles, Raissa (2016). Marcos Martial Law: Never Again. FILIPINOS FOR A BETTER PHILIPPINES , INC.
- ^ "A FILIPINO ON THE SPOT". Retrieved June 18, 2018.
- JSTOR 2755948.
- ^ "MANILA NEWSPAPER CLOSED BY MARCOS". Retrieved June 18, 2018.
- ^ "The One That Got Away | Newsbreak | Independent Journalism". archives.newsbreak-knowledge.ph. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
- ^ "The Haunting of Martial Law: Records from the Marcos Regime". UH School of Law Library. September 7, 2017. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
- ^ "30 years ago today: Enrile, Ramos withdraw support for Marcos". February 22, 2016. Retrieved August 2, 2021.
- ^ "Security Sector Reform in the Philippines". Middle East Institute. Archived from the original on November 6, 2018. Retrieved September 5, 2021.
- ^ About the Philippine National police Archived March 26, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ABS-CBN News.
- ^ Merez, Arianne (February 6, 2017). "Why Duterte wants to revive Philippine Constabulary". ABS-CBN News.
- ^ "Planned revival of Philippine Constabulary". The Philippine Star. January 31, 2017.
- ^ "NCRPO History – PNP – National Capital Region Police Office". www.ncrpo.pnp.gov.ph.
- Bibliography
- 53rd PC Anniversary Yearbook, 1954 Edition
- Emerson, William K. (1996). "27. Philippine Constabulary". Encyclopedia of United States Army insignia and uniforms. Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-2622-7.
- Philippine Constabulary Yearbook August 1960
- The Constable, 70th PC Anniversary, August 8, 1971 Edition
- Ladwig III, Walter C. (2014). When the Police are the Problem: The Philippine Constabulary and the Huk Rebellion (PDF). in C. Christine Fair and Sumit Ganguly, (eds.) Policing Insurgencies: Cops as Counterinsurgents. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
- United States W#ar Office, ed. (1916). Report of the Philippine Commission to the Secretary of War, 1915. United States Government Printing Office.
- Beltran, Orlando B. (June 1996). THE MANAGEMENT OF THE CORPS OF PROFESSORS OF THE PHILIPPINE MILITARY ACADEMY (PDF) (Thesis). U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 31, 2021. (via Library of the University of Michigan)