MANILA — The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to approve on third and final reading a bill seeking to restructure the Philippine National Police (PNP) and impose a term limit for its chief.

Voting 187-0, the House of Representatives approved House Bill 8327, which seeks to amend several provisions of the Department of Interior and Local Government Act and the Philippine National Police Reform and Reorganization Act.

It will create additional offices and other positions such as directorate for personnel and records management, intelligence, operations, logistics, plans, comptrollership, police community relations, investigation; training, education, and doctrine development; research and development, and information and communications technology management.

• Ilang online scams sa Pilipinas pinatatakbo ng mga dayuhan: PNP

"Through these various changes, we aspire to make the PNP more responsive in dealing with its present-day challenges, including internal issues. This will ultimately redound to the benefit of Filipinos, whom the PNP seeks to protect," said Speaker Martin Romualdez, a principal author of the bill.

The bill imposes a term limit for the PNP chief.

"The Chief of the PNP shall serve a term of office not to exceed four (4) years, and shall be compulsory retired at the maximum tenure in position herein prescribed, or at age 56, whichever is earlier."

Under the bill, the PNP Chief shall have the rank of police general; the second in command will have the position title of deputy chief of the PNP for administration, with the rank of police lieutenant general; while the third in command shall have the position title of deputy chief of the PNP for operations, with the rank of police lieutenant general.

It will also establish Area Police Commands (APC) in clustered police regional offices, district offices, and city police offices "in order to enhance the control of the Chief of the PNP."

"The APC shall orchestrate, supervise, and control the conduct of inter-regional operations against insurgency, terrorism, and other internal security threats. Further, the APC shall likewise conduct search, rescue, and relief operations in times of calamities and other emergency situations within their respective areas of jurisdiction,” it said.

"Finally, the APC shall support the police regional offices in the conduct of inter-regional anti-criminality operations and investigation," the 24-page bill read.

The Speaker's office explained that the five initial APCs are the Northern Luzon, Southern Luzon, Visayas, Eastern Mindanao, and Western Mindanao APCs.

• Index crime rate bahagyang bumaba mula Enero hanggang Hunyo: PNP

The bill will be submitted to the Senate for concurrence.

• Marcos accepts resignation of 18 cops with alleged drug links