How Powerful Does a Police Office?

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza, MPA

A mayor in Dagupan City chided his chief of police – a Lieutenant Colonel – for threatening and arresting his leaders who were buying voters to vote for him the night before his reelection. The top cop despite being appointed by the Hizzoner among the five recommendees from the Police Provincial Office (PPO) in Lingayen, Pangasinan told him: “Sir, wala ho akong magawa utos po ni P.D (Provincial Director and a full colonel)”.

TOP COPS. Dagupan City Police Office Chief Col. Orly Z. Pagaduan (left) and Pangasinan Police Provincial Office Director Col. Arbel C. Mercullo.

Despite the favors given by the mayor (and this is true not only in my city but in other towns and cities in the country to the chief of police), he acquiesced to his superior in the PPO. The PD can sack him and he becomes a Navy (a play of words for those who found themselves “floating”) if he becomes a problem to the former.

But that reverence would be different if the city is independent to the provincial director where the top cop of the city has the same rank with the former.

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When I bumped into Dagupan City Police Office (DCPO) Police Lieutenant Colonel Roderick Gonzales, chief of the DCPO Community Affairs and Development Unit, (a pal since the heydays of the controversial Brig. Gen. Marlou Chan (PMA ’85) – a friend also) and PPO Public Information Chief Captain Aileen Catugas at the soft opening recently of AR TV hosted by veteran broadcasters Ruel Camba and Atong Remogat, I asked Eric at the sideline: “Educate me, what’s the difference between a Police Office  in Dagupan  and the PPO in Lingayen?”

He told me that presently the DCPO has 600 cops and will be going to 1,000 after a year. “When we were Dagupan City Police Station we had only 160 cops,” he said.

Captain Catugas told me that the PPO has 3, 115 (or was it 3,150 that manned the 44 towns and 3 cities’ Pangasinan?) men and women in uniform. “Di pa kasali diyan Sir iyong Non-Uniformed Personnel (NUPs) namin,” the cop -- who became an officer through lateral entry probably from being a Sergeant -- told me.

Geez, how times fly. When I worked at the PIO (soldiers called MA-7) of the Philippines Military Academy in Baguio City in the late 1980’s, we non-military workers were called “civilian employee” where the E.M or enlisted men (Private to Master Sergeant – those mostly high school grads) looked down upon us where their discrimination includes those waiters (Cadets called Manong) and clerks too, hahaha!

“Mga civilian lang iyan sila!” the usual blurt of the military there. I remembered a former governor and a retired police colonel blasted his political nemesis a congressman as “Civilian lang iyan!”. I thought then and now that how could a Colonel looked down on a congressman when the latter raked, sanamagan, billions of pesos a year pork barrel from the national government where he has a cut that runs to hundreds of millions of pesos a year to feed his family, mistresses, and whatchamacallit while a full colonel depends only on his more than a hundred thousand pesos pension monthly, hahaha!

I digress, let’s go back to Colonel Eric Gonzales of Bulacan who is handsome than me of a month’s bath:

He said that that the DCPO reports directly to the Regional Police Office (PRO) at San Ferndando City in La Union.

“(It is also) tailored to urban challenges: traffic management, cybercrime, commercial crime, and dense population safety,” he cited when compared to the provincial police office in Lingayen.

Police Lieutenant Colonel Roderick Gonzales, chief of the Dagupan City Police Office's Community Affairs and Development Unit (left photo) and the Author.

Eric, who just finished his schooling for that military’s version of the GSC (General Staff College) for him to  be qualified as full colonel,  told me that the elevation from Police Station to Police Office brings critical advantages like: 1. DCPO now operates under a higher command level led by a City Director with the rank of Police Colonel, allowing faster decision-making and more flexible response to local emergencies without excessive reliance on provincial oversight; 2. As a Police Office, DCPO is entitled to additional personnel, equipment, and funding from the Philippine National Police (PNP) higher headquarters, enabling it to expand specialized units like the City Mobile Force Company, City Traffic Enforcement Unit, anti-crime, cybercrime, and disaster response teams and the creation of six police stations with the rank of Police Captain as its station commander; 3. While still focused on Dagupan City, DCPO has greater authority to coordinate with regional and national law enforcement agencies on cross-border crimes, such as human trafficking, illegal drugs, and organized crime; 4. The elevated status allows for more structured community policing programs, including closer partnerships with local government units, schools, and civil society groups to address root causes of crime.

Lt. Col. Gonzales added that the transformation in August 22, 2025 of Dagupan City as Police Office through the approval of the National Police Commission and the PNP instead of being a “lowly (writer’s emphasis)” Police Station bode well because it could address the city's growing population (174,302 as of the 2020 census.) and improve the policeman-to-population ratio, which was well below the ideal 1:500 with only 160 personnel as of middle of this year. Eric too cited four new police stations, a tourist police unit in Bonuan, and additional mobile forces loom anytime from now to be approved.

Dagupan City Police Office and the Provincial Police Office are headed by Orly Z. Pagaduan (PNPA Class of 2000) and Col. Arbel C. Mercullo (PNPA Class of 2004), the latter a son of a police Sergeant once assigned in Calasiao. It was told to me by the young visionary Calasiao Mayor Patrick Caramat (a son of a two-star police general and a PMYer) told me when I met him and Mercullo at his office.