By Cherrie Anne E. Villahermosa
Variety News Staff

REPRESENTATIVE Stanley T. Torres yesterday said a petition signed by 88 of the Department of Public Safety’s over 300 personnel, complains of an “organizational breakdown” at DPS.
The petition is critical of DPS Commissioner Rebecca M. Warfield’s leadership.
Torres, in a letter, asked Speaker Oscar M. Babauta, Covenant-Saipan, and Senate President Joseph M. Mendiola, Covenant-Tinian, to address the petition.
Torres, Ind.-Saipan, also asked Gov. Benigno R. Fitial and the Legislature to “restore the confidence” of the DPS personnel “before things get out of hand.”
Torres said nearly two weeks before the governor’s State of the Commonwealth Address, his office received an anonymous call regarding the petition that was delivered to the governor’s office,
Torres stated that the DPS personnel did not want the petition to become public until after the governor’s State of Commonwealth Address.
“The petition and the large number of signatories should be seriously addressed, since the morale of the DPS personnel is at the lowest and we should call an oversight (hearing) to resolve the problems,” Torres said.
Warfield, in an earlier interview with Variety, said she had not heard or seen a petition.
The petition claimed that there was “an organizational breakdown in the department as a result of the absence of an organizational structure and the lack of an adequate command and control staff to provide sufficient guidance to subordinate personnel essential in the maintenance of public safety.”
According to the petition, “there is no sense of direction as many of the department’s personnel are left abandoned to underrepresent the department in various levels of challenges or capacities that often result in negative outcomes.”
The department’s command staff members, the petition added, “are engaged in ridiculous disputes that have contributed to an unnecessary instability among the department’s subordinates.
Several of the department’s key employees who have the capability to assist and provide solutions in terms of innovative programs and resources have been underutilized and effectively marginalized to a point that they are no longer able to contribute to the improvement and efficient growth of the department,” the petition stated. It also mentioned a “disparity in pay in relation to actual duties, time of service and performance (and) the incorrect portrayal of the department’s current state to the public through the media and other sources consequently misrepresenting the department’s true needs and problems.”