P10B to benefit
Negros cops, too
BY GILBERT BAYORAN

Director General Avelino Razon yesterday announced that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has approved the 5-year modernization program of the Philippine National Police, at a cost of P10 billion.

Razon said this will mean more patrol cars and other vehicles, firearms, investigative equipment, communication, training and personnel for the 120,000-strong Philippine police force

The PNP now has a yearly budget of P2 billion for a five-year period to pursue its modernization program, he added.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno yesterday stressed the need to allow judges whose lives are under threat to carry guns, pointing out that the judiciary has had 15 casualties so far.

“This is not a complete arming, only those (judges)  with real threats on their lives” should be allowed to carry guns, said Puno, who was in Bacolod City to speak to about 3,000 Masons gathered at the Bacolod Pavillon and Resort for their 92nd annual communication.

Puno, a former grandmaster of the Philippine masons, said “This is because our security agencies cannot provide full and appropriate security for them.”

The protection of the environment is high on the priority of the Supreme Court, and to aggressively carry this out, we have created and continue to strengthen our “green benches,” Chief Justice Reynato Puno said yesterday.

“The conglomeration of the country’s environmental problems has resulted in what scientist claim is the coming of an environmental collapse in the Philippines,” Puno said.

That is why the protection of the environment is high on the priority list of the entire government, including the judiciary, he said.