PNP Crime Lab moves to beef up, modernize offices

JUST like most Philippine National Police (PNP) units, the Crime Laboratory is also plagued with inadequate personnel and obsolete equipment.

Police Brigadier General Rolando Hinanay, chief of the PNP Crime Laboratory, said it has been on the unit’s pipeline to pursue the reorganization and restructuring of the Crime Lab.

Part of their plan is to beef up the current strength of the PNP Crime Laboratory to keep with the demands for forensic services of the different PNP units.

Aside from the need for doctors who will conduct post-mortem examinations, Hinanay said they also lack chemists and medical technologists.

Currently, all provinces in Western Visayas have their own crime laboratory office but only one chemist is assigned in Region 6.

Hinanay said they recently recruited 41 chemists and several doctors who are currently undergoing training.

They will be distributed all over the country, including Region 6.

Trainings on scene-of-the-crime operations and other-related activities are also being done.

Chemists are being trained on the examination of illegal drugs.

Hinanay said they already established their laboratories in Davao and Cebu.

“A few months ago, we were able to operationalize the DNA laboratory in Davao to cater for the Mindanao regions. We are now operationalizing the DNA and chemistry laboratory in Cebu,” he said.

All evidence and specimens collected from crime scenes in those areas and neighboring provinces will no longer be brought to Manila for examination.

“That’s the direction that we would like to institute in other regions,” Hinanay said.

The Crime Lab noted that the PNP in Western Visayas has a peculiarity because it will also serve as data recovery site of all system that they have at the national headquarters.

It is envisioned to have an automatic fingerprint identification system, DNA laboratory, bullet comparison microscopes for firearms identification, and many other services.