Cotabato City's first woman police director
Local News • 17:30 PM Mon May 27, 2019
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By:
Edwin O. Fernandez
Police Colonel Portia B. Manalad (3rd from left in PNP uniform), new city police director, poses with Mayor Cynthia Guiani Sayadi (center in blue) and city employees. (Photo courtesy of Junamin Dimacisil)
COTABATO CITY -- The first woman graduate of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA), now Police Colonel Portia Bañaga-Manalad today assumed as the first city police director.
Manalad also becomes the first woman city director under Police Regional Office (PRO-12) or Soccsksargen region and the first in Mindanao.
Manalad replaced Police Colonel Michael Lebanan as head of Cotabato City Police Office (CCPO) during the turnover ceremonies at the CCPO headquarters here administered by Police Colonel Oliver A. Enmodias, PRO-12 deputy regional director for operations, representing Police Brig. Gen. Eliseo Tam Rasco, PRO-12 regional director.
Cotabato City Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, the first elected city mayor, welcomed Manalad even as she bid goodbye to Colonel Lebanan who was reassigned to PRO-12 regional office in Gen. Santos City.
Manalad was the first and only female cadet to graduate from the country’s premier police academy in 1995.
Manalad becomes the first female city director in Cotabato City, in Region 12 (Soccsksargen region) and in the entire island of Mindanao.
Manalad was also a graduate of Master in Public Management, major in Development and Security, at the Development Academy of the Philippines in 2016.
She served in the UN peacekeeping mission in conflict areas in Kosovo and East Timor.
“Let's work hand in hand with our new acting city director in achieving peace, security and unity amidst diversity,” Mayor Sayadi said.
Manalad is an advocate of women empowerment, stressing in her many public speaking engagements that “women may be weaker physically but we could be as strong as everybody else in the service in several other ways.”
She pushed for the deployment of more women peacekeepers in the United Nations missions in conflict affected countries.
With the challenges of law and order, rising criminalities, as well as culture diversity at hand in the city, Manalad will be facing an enormous tasks.
Colonel Enmodias said Manalad is now the apple of the eye of other lady police officers not only by her PNPA female underclass but also other female officers in the PNP organization. (EOF)