North Cotabato 2020-2021 peace and order plan out 

COTABATO CITY --- North Cotabato province now has a peace and order and public safety plan for 2020 to 2021, a requisite for intelligence fund releases.

The POPSP 2020-2021 of the province is focused on multi-sector cooperation to sustain the security efforts of the police and military, according to North Cotabato Gov. Nancy Catamco.

The POPSP 2020-2021, drafted and approved by the inter-agency provincial peace and order council (PPOC) chaired by Catamco, is a requirement for allocating intelligence funds to be drawn from the monthly Internal Revenue Allotment of the province. 

Catamco said the details of the POPSP 2020-2021 were discussed during Monday’s PPOC meeting at the provincial capitol in Kidapawan City. 

Vice Gov. Emmylou Mendoza, presiding chairperson of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan, and representatives from the Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police were also present in the meeting. 

The meeting was also attended by local officials and members of the inter-agency PPOC, among them the congressional representatives in the province.

Catamco said Tuesday she was elated with how members of the PPOC worked together in preparing the POPSP 2020-2021. 

The first-termer Catamco said the comprehensive peace and order plan aims to pool together the domestic security efforts of the police, the military, the local executives in the 17 towns in the province and in its capital, Kidapawan City.

Catamco said she attended last week the 32^nd founding anniversary of the Army’s 72^nd Infantry Battalion in Pangao-an in the upland Magpet town in North Cotabato as part of her continuing effort to foster cordiality among her administration and all military and police units in the province. 

Catamco said she urged the officials and rank-and-file personnel of the 72^nd IB  and the leaders in barangays under the battalion’s jurisdiction to help one another in addressing local security issues.

“Local security concerns are something that we don’t leave to the police and military alone to solve. The local government units, the barangay and traditional leaders and the local communities ought to help each other solve them like one big community,” Catamco said.

Catamco said the POPSP 20200-2021 is benchmarked on multi-sector unity in preventing peace and order problems in the province. 

She said her office is ready to support continuing peace dialogues among the security sectors, LGU officials and leaders of the local communities in keeping with her administration’s thrust to keep the peace in North Cotabato via multi-sector and inter-agency collaboration.