Senate OKs bill allowing select PNP officials to issue subpoenas

The Senate on Monday approved on third and final reading a bill seeking to authorize select officials of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to issue subpoenas on cases under investigation.

Senate Bill 1239 aims to give subpoena powers to the PNP chief, the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group director and the CIDG deputy director.

The bill is authored by Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former chief of the PNP.

In filing the bill, Lacson noted that when the Philippine Constabulary and the Integrated National Police were merged to establish the current PNP under Republic Act 6975, most of the powers due the agency were carried over except for the subpoena powers.

“It seems absurd that the Criminal Investigation Unit (CIU), now known as the CIDG, with a mandate to undertake monitoring, investigation and prosecution of all crimes of such magnitude and extent as to indicate their commission by highly-placed or professional syndicates and organization, has lost its subpoena powers,” said Lacson, chairman of the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs, in his sponsorship speech.

Without the subpoena powers, the former PNP chief said investigations would be incomplete and government resources would be wasted.

Aside from the courts, only seven government offices including the Office of the Ombudsman, the Department of Justice, National Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Internal Revenue, and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency are authorized to issue subpoenas. —Virgil Lopez/ALG, GMA News