Kalinga son, Col. Francisco Bulwayan, Jr., has assumed as acting director of the Baguio City Police Office on Oct. 5, as Mayor Benjamin Magalong urged the former to serve the city and its people right.
A member of Philippine National Police Academy Class of 1999, Bulwayan was the head of the Regional Personnel Records Management Division (R1) of Police Regional Office-Cordillera prior to his designation to BCPO.
He also served as director of the Tabuk City Police Office and has served in other capacities in other areas of the Cordillera.
In his acceptance speech, Bulwayan acknowledged his new assignment entails great challenges, as he cited some of the achievements of BCPO under the watch of outgoing director Col. Glenn Lonogan.
Baguio remains one of the safest highly-urbanized cities in Southeast Asia, an accomplishment the city has sustained since the release of the survey in 2018 with the city in sixth place with 58.38 safety index.
Bulwayan assured police presence in critical areas in the city especially at night, adding that uniformed personnel must respond to emergency calls quickly since the city has already established pre-positioning of logistics in crime-prone sites, points of convergence, business and residential areas.
“When residents of Baguio are sleeping, our uniformed personnel must be visible. During those unholy hours, they should be visible, especially in crime-prone areas,” Bulwayan said.
He also vowed BCPO’s full support to the Smart City program of the city government, which aims to help in significantly improving anti-criminality response, timely disaster risk reduction response, and better traffic and transportation plans, among other projects.
Magalong, a retired three-star police general, reiterated to the new BCPO director about his primary task, which is to serve the city and its people, and he does need to please the local chief executive.
Under the current setup, local chief executives are given by law specific powers and responsibilities over the local police units assigned in their jurisdictions.
Magalong said some former directors of BCPO have excelled in performing their duties and responsibilities despite not being the top choice of the regional command or incumbent mayor for the position.
He claimed uniformed personnel of BCPO has displayed professionalism in performing their tasks, reason why Baguio’s Finest earned the respect of former and current key officers in Camp Crame.
Magalong added the accolades and awards conferred to the city government were all achieved with the full support of BCPO, even as he acknowledged the roles played by the men and women in uniform in the city’s successful response against the Covid-19 pandemic. – Harley F. Palangchao
