The Philippine National Police (PNP) said their operation is not affected despite the increase of COVID-19 cases among their ranks.

"We haven't seen any effect of this in the performance of our duty, and the PNP continued to maintain the peace, order and to stop crimes," said Brig. General Bernard Banac, PNP spokesman, in a virtual forum Saturday.

"The PNP has enough number of personnel, more than 209,000, so the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases of more than 1,796 is just a small percentage," he said.

"It is not even half of one percent so we will just continue (our mandate). The public has nothing worry about," he added.

Banac also emphasized the measures implemented by the PNP to address the increase of COVID-19 cases within their ranks.

"We continue to implement our biosafety measures. It is very important to stop the increasing number of police frontliners who are getting sick," he said

"So we also observed physical distancing and we continue our disinfection to out offices, and we are very strict on the use of face masks," said Banac.

"We also continue the rotation of our personnel to minimize the exposure of our policemen, at least every 14 days they can avoid the exposure," he added.

Banac added that the testing facility being built in Cebu will be a big help to the PNP.

"It will be a big help in monitoring the COVID cases among the PNP in Central Visayas and now the construction of the testing laboratory is ongoing and upon its completion we will ask the DOH for its license to operate," he said.

"It has a capacity of 150 tests.. We have four COVID fatalities from Central Visayas, it is a big percentage on the death toll of PNP which have reached to 10, four in Central Visayas and six in Luzon," he added. Robina Asido/DMS