August 1, 2000, The Philippine Star, 1,163 former cops receiving paychecks; probe on,

August 1, 2000, The Philippine Star, 1,163 former cops receiving paychecks; probe on,

Interior and Local Government Secretary Alfredo Lim ordered an investigation yesterday into findings by the National Police Commission (Napolcom) that 1,163 former policemen are still collecting monthly paychecks from the Finance and Computer Service of the Philippine National Police.

In a report to Lim, Edmundo Fernandez, chief of the Napolcom's Inspection, Monitoring and Investigation Service, said most of these lawmen have been separated from the service since 1998.

PNP-FCS personnel told the Napolcom that they have witnessed anomalous issuances of checks to former police personnel since 1993.

But PNP chief Director General Panfilo Lacson said there was no anomaly. Of the 1,163 names, he said only 935 were provided to the PNP and that of the 935 names, 738 were deleted from the salary master file from December 1999 to July this year. Eleven others will be deleted this month.

Lacson said no deletions were made from last December to February because the PNP advanced the printing of checks as part of the Y2K readiness program. He admitted there were excess paychecks printed, but that those were normally detected.

In a week-long surveillance, Fernandez said they found out that checks were collected and encashed at the Land Bank of the Philippines, some by people other than the payees.

In some cases, a single person encashed two checks bearing different names, and in other instances, a check was double-printed and collected by two payees, Fernandez said.

Last month, he said they uncovered six cases where checks which had been encashed, were returned to the PNP-FCS for another issuance.

Lim hinted that top officials of PNP-FCS were working in collusion with LandBank personnel.

Lim directed Chief Superintendent Francisco Zubia, head of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, to lead the inquiry. Zubia said he will summon Senior Superintendent Quirino de la Torre, PNP-FCS chief. - Marvin Sy, Mike Frialde