By FERDIE DE LA TORRE
\nREPORTER<\/p>\n
Department of Public Safety Commissioner Santiago F. Tudela yesterday promoted 51 police officers and firefighters who have already been in service for more than five years.<\/p>\n
Gov. Juan N. Babauta graced the ceremony held at the police academy in Susupe. It was the first time in many years that DPS initiated such a massive promotion with accompanying salary increases for the change in ranks.<\/p>\n
Babauta and Tudela handed the badges and placed the insignias on the shoulders of the police officers and firefighters.<\/p>\n
Elevated were 32 police officers, including Police Officers 1 Jesse James Stole and Jeffrey F. Olopai who are members of the U.S. Army Reserve and are presently deployed in Iraq.<\/p>\n
Lt. Pedro Aguon Leon Guerrero is now a captain, while Police Officers 3 Jose P. Saures, Bernard K. Santos, and Joaquin Sn. Camacho became sergeants.<\/p>\n
The commissioner promoted 19 firefighters, including Firefighter 3 Thomas Manglona who is now the Emergency Medical Services crew supervisor.<\/p>\n
Tudela explained that there are some vacancies for the lieutenant positions, but no one applied for the rank.<\/p>\n
He explained that one of the factors as to why nobody likes to be a lieutenant is the lack of overtime for the position.<\/p>\n
“When you are sergeants you can still be eligible to avail [yourself] of overtime fees. But if you are a lieutenant, you cannot avail of overtime,” Tudela said.<\/p>\n
The police officers, he said, are those who have been in the department for six to eight years and deserve promotions.<\/p>\n
Tudela said he had worked for the promotion for more than five months and that he is thankful the governor supported him.<\/p>\n
“I am thanking them [officers and firefighters] for their dedication and hard work in helping the community safe,” he said.<\/p>\n
Tudela stated that when he was appointed commissioner in November 2004, he immediately talked to the governor and underscored to him the need to promote personnel.<\/p>\n
“They worked a 12-hour shift, yet they don’t complain. As commissioner I want to give back to them to show my appreciation,” he said, adding that their duties are difficult as compared to those from other agencies.<\/p>\n
“We have to be professionals all the time…keep working on high standards. I want them to act professionally and be friendly to the community,” he said.<\/p>\n
Tudela noted that some of these firefighters did not even get promotion over the past 10 years.<\/p>\n
Tudela said the promotion would boost the morale of the DPS personnel, which was one of his priorities when he was tapped to run the department.<\/p>\n
The promotion was a long process and difficult because he had to justify it considering its financial impact, he stressed.<\/p>\n
In 1990, then DPS Director Gregorio Camacho promoted everybody, including firefighters. A couple of years ago, then commissioner Edward Camacho promoted 57 personnel, but without the accompanying salary increases due to lack of funding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Department of Public Safety Commissioner Santiago F. Tudela yesterday promoted 51 police officers and firefighters who have already been in service for more than five years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}