Philippine Constabulary Metropolitan Command
The Philippine Constabulary Metropolitan Command or METROCOM was a major subordinate unit of the Philippine Constabulary (PC) and was considered on the same level of a Constabulary Zone Command. The METROCOM was created pursuant to Executive Order (EO) of the President on July 14, 1967 to complement and supplement police forces within Greater Manila Area in its campaign against all forms of criminality.
Establishment and Mission
Mobile patrol coverage of the metropolitan Manila area was considered inadequate as highlighted by the increased criminality in the late 1960s which required more vigorous law enforcement action, over and above the capabilities of the local police forces. Then President Ferdinand Marcos directed the PC to organize on July 14, 1967, a special striking force to be known as the PC Metropolitan Command (METROCOM). It was organized with a modest force of about three hundred (300) officers and men to operate in the cities of Manila, Quezon, Caloocan and Pasay; and in the then municipalities of Marikina, Pasig, Makati, Mandaluyong, San Juan, Parañaque, Las Piñas, Navotas, Malabon and Taguig. This strike force was the Philippine Constabulary Special Forces Company (Airborne). They wore the distinctive black berets with the red canopy border. All members were all Airborne paratroopers and Special Forces graduates within the PC itself.
The increasing frequency of criminality and graver crimes in the greater Manila area as well as rampant smuggling and illegal fishing in the Manila Bay area prompted President Marcos to issue EO 120 on February 16, 1968 which expanded the PC Metrocom into a Metropolitan Area Command (MAC). The AFP Chief of Staff was instructed by virtue of this EO to organize the MAC into a joint task force type unit to be made up of the existing PC Metrocom as a nucleus, and augmented by such military personnel from all major services of the armed forces. The strength of the unit was subsequently increased to one thousand eight hundred (1,800) officers and men. Its primary efforts were directed towards assisting the local police forces in carrying out their operations against criminality, and augmenting their capabilities in terms of personnel and equipment. Law enforcement and maintenance of peace and order was still basically, the primary responsibility of the local police forces. METROCOM had also led, guided and weathered student activist demonstrations, riots, and labor strikes (including the First Quarter Storm of 1971).
The METROCOM entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with the Chiefs of Police of the cities and municipalities within the Greater Manila area, duly approved by their respective mayors, in which it was made clear that the METROCOM would basically be only an "augmentation" for to complement and/or supplement the capabilities of the local police.
Complete administrative and operational control over METROCOM which has been exercised by GHQ was passed on to the Chief of Constabulary on July 1, 1970, making it a purely PC unit.
The National Police Commission, formed in 1967, which had loose supervisory authority over the police which caused a lot of defects and inefficiencies. In continued efforts to correct the deficiencies, Presidential Decree 765 was issued on August 8, 1975 which established the joint command structure of the Philippine Constabulary and Integrated National Police, the said decree would strength METROCOM capabilities within the soon to be established National Capital Region.
Post-Marcos
Under the Aquino Administration, it was determined that a new Philippine National Police was to be formed in 1991 by merging the Integrated National Police into the Philippine Constabulary. METROCOM is currently named as National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) under the command of a Police Director/Major General of the Philippine National Police.
Sources
- The Constable, July 1971 Edition
See also
Law enforcement in the Philippines | ||
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