General Dela Paz cleared, from Russia to Philippines

The former Philippine National Police (PNP) comptroller Eliseo dela Paz was cleared and can return to Manila, as Philippine Consul General Joselito Jimeno said. The said general was able to convince the Russian investigators that the 105,000 euro (P6.9 million) was a contingency fund for the delegates to Moscow.

Though General Dela Paz was cleared in Russia, upon his return he will be facing different probes as to why such huge amount of money was taken as contingency fund aside from the approved budget of the delegates. The Office of the Ombudsman, the National Police Commission (NAPOLCOM) and the Aviation Security Group (ASG) are some of the groups who will perform their respective investigations on the said incident.

There are many questions sprouted from this incident not only from different government institutions and private ones but moreover to the ordinary members of the entire PNP. The policemen had and continue agonizing due to low salary, always promise housing benefit, lack of ammunitions, to name some and yet their institution can set aside that huge amount for the generals’ contingency fund which I think is big question too to many. Nowadays that we are facing a global financial crisis, those generals must be able to defend how important for them to take with them a contingency fund on that amount or else they may suffer the same consequence of General Garcia.