Integrated National Police

Also known as: INP · Pinagsamang Pulisyáng Pambansà (Filipino) · Policía Nacional Conjunta (Spanish) · PC–INP (the joint Philippine Constabulary–Integrated National Police command structure)

Government

Definition

The Integrated National Police (INP) was the national police force of the Philippines from 1975 to 1991, constituted during the martial-law period by Presidential Decree No. 765 of August 8, 1975 — “Providing for the Constitution of the Integrated National Police and for Other Purposes.” The decree integrated the country’s fragmented city and municipal police, fire, and jail services — previously consolidated in stages by Presidential Decrees Nos. 421, 482, 531, 585, and 641 — into a single national force with the Philippine Constabulary as its nucleus, placed under the Department of National Defense. The Chief of Constabulary served concurrently as Director General of the INP with command of all its elements, an arrangement known collectively as the PC–INP. (LawPhil — PD 765, Wikipedia)

The INP was dissolved by Republic Act No. 6975 (December 13, 1990), which merged the Philippine Constabulary and the Integrated National Police into the civilian Philippine National Police, formally activated at Camp Crame, Quezon City on January 29, 1991 — the transition traced in this wiki’s entry on the Philippine National Police. Its fire and jail components passed to the new Bureau of Fire Protection and Bureau of Jail Management and Penology under the Department of the Interior and Local Government. (LawPhil — RA 6975, Wikipedia)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	Integrated National Police
Wikidata	Integrated National Police (Q6042910)
DBpedia	Integrated_National_Police
ProductOntology	GovernmentAgency
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	Philippines. Integrated National Police
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Integrated National Police PD 765 Philippine Constabulary martial law policing Philippines
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

INP
Pinagsamang Pulisyáng Pambansà (Filipino)
Policía Nacional Conjunta (Spanish)
PC–INP (the joint Philippine Constabulary–Integrated National Police command structure)

Examples and Analogies

Nationalizing the beat cop: before 1975 policing was a local affair — roughly 1,500 cities and municipalities ran their own police, fire, and jail services — and the INP folded them into one national hierarchy of regional and provincial commands reaching down to city and municipal stations, a centralization characteristic of the martial-law state examined in this wiki’s entry on Martial Law in the Philippines. (Wikipedia)
A constabulary in police clothing: because the Philippine Constabulary remained a major service of the Armed Forces while serving as the INP’s nucleus, the “national police” was commanded by a serving general through the defense establishment — the structural feature that post-1986 reformers dismantled by placing the successor PNP under a civilian interior department (see the Philippine National Police and Department of the Interior and Local Government entries on this site). (LawPhil — PD 765, LawPhil — RA 6975)
The capital’s double chain: in Greater Manila the arrangement was layered further: Presidential Decree No. 421 of March 21, 1974 had already merged the capital area’s local police into a Metropolitan Police Force overseen by the commander of the Constabulary’s Metropolitan Command (Metrocom), and under the INP the Metrocom chief remained concurrently chief of the metropolitan force and its police districts. (LawPhil — PD 421, Wikipedia — Metrocom)
Verified organizational data:
Legal basis: Presidential Decree No. 765 (August 8, 1975), building on PD Nos. 421, 482, 531, 585, and 641
Nucleus: Philippine Constabulary, with its headquarters at national, zone/regional, and provincial levels serving as the nuclei of INP headquarters
Headquarters: Camp Crame, Quezon City
Director General: the Chief of Constabulary, ex officio; Fidel V. Ramos served from the INP’s creation until 1986, followed by Renato de Villa (1986–1988), Ramon Montaño (1988–1990), and Cesar P. Nazareno (1990–1991)
Training: the Philippine National Police Academy was created in 1978 to officer the force
Dissolved: merged into the Philippine National Police activated January 29, 1991 under RA 6975

Usage Scenarios

1. Law Enforcement Under Martial Law

From 1975 to 1986 the INP was the principal instrument of routine law enforcement — patrol, criminal investigation, and public-safety work delivered through regional and provincial commands — operating alongside the military in the counterinsurgency and order-maintenance environment of the martial-law years. (Wikipedia)

2. Fire and Jail Services Administration

Unlike its successor, the INP carried integrated fire and jail services, which answered to national headquarters through regional commands; these functions were separated only in 1991, when RA 6975 created the Bureau of Fire Protection and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology under the Department of the Interior and Local Government. (LawPhil — PD 765, LawPhil — RA 6975)

3. Metropolitan Policing in the Capital

In Metro Manila the INP’s work was shadowed by the Constabulary’s Metropolitan Command: the Metrocom commander doubled as chief of the Metropolitan Police Force, supervising the capital’s police districts — an arrangement inherited from PD 421 and ended only after 1986, when Metrocom was renamed the Capital Region Command and eventually became the PNP’s National Capital Region Police Office. (LawPhil — PD 421, Wikipedia — Metrocom)

4. Police Professionalization

The INP era produced the institutional skeleton of Philippine policing — a national rank and personnel system professionalized by PD 1184 (the Integrated National Police Personnel Professionalization Law of 1977), the Philippine National Police Academy from 1978, and the station-based geographic organization the PNP inherited wholesale in 1991. The INP is thus the standard “before” case in Philippine police-reform literature, measured against RA 6975’s civilian successor. (Wikipedia)

Strategies

Integration by decree: rather than legislate, the Marcos government consolidated policing through a series of presidential decrees — metropolitan integration first (PD 421), national integration after (PD 765) — completed before any legislative debate was possible under martial law. (LawPhil — PD 421, LawPhil — PD 765)
Dual-hatted command: lodging the Director Generalship in the Chief of Constabulary fused military and police chains into one hierarchy answerable to the President through the Defense Department. (LawPhil — PD 765)
National headquarters on a constabulary spine: PC headquarters at every level became the nuclei of INP headquarters, jointly staffed by constabulary, police, jail, and fire officers — integration built onto existing military infrastructure. (LawPhil — PD 765)
Local funding, national control: while Section 9 of PD 765 stripped cities and municipalities of supervisory control over their police, the transitory provisions kept local governments paying and logistically supporting their former forces. (LawPhil — PD 765)

Security and Safety Measures

Military discipline as order maintenance: the constabulary nucleus imposed Armed Forces discipline on civil policing — the regime’s chosen safeguard of loyalty and control, and the very feature later criticized as incompatible with civilian policing. (LawPhil — PD 765)
Militarized rank system: PD 1184 (1977) imposed a paramilitary rank structure on INP personnel, standardizing command and promotion — a system whose anomalies, such as promotions beyond statutory ceilings, drew comment even at the time. (Wikipedia)
For researchers: weigh the INP’s institutional record against the documented accusations of violence, abuse, corruption, and illegal activities by its personnel that repeatedly forced the government to announce disciplinary and image-improvement programs. (Wikipedia)

Historical Context

The INP was a product of the martial-law reorganization of the Philippine state. Beginning in 1974, presidential decrees amalgamated the police, fire, and jail services of the country’s cities and municipalities — starting with the Greater Manila Area under PD 421 of March 21, 1974 — and on August 8, 1975, PD 765 constituted the Integrated National Police with the Philippine Constabulary as its nucleus under the Department of National Defense. The Chief of Constabulary served as Director General from 1975: Fidel V. Ramos until 1986, then Renato de Villa, Ramon Montaño, and finally Cesar P. Nazareno, the last chief of the PC–INP, who became the first Director General of the Philippine National Police. The force was headquartered at Camp Crame and organized through regional and provincial commands down to city and municipal stations. (LawPhil — PD 765, LawPhil — PD 421, Wikipedia)

The People Power Revolution of February 1986 ended the regime that built the INP but not the force itself; between 1986 and 1991 the PC–INP continued under the democratic government, with the Metrocom renamed the Capital Region Command. Republic Act No. 6975, approved December 13, 1990, ended the dual structure by merging the Constabulary and the INP into the Philippine National Police, activated at Camp Crame on January 29, 1991 — the fuller narrative is in this wiki’s entries on the Philippine National Police and the EDSA People Power Revolution. (Wikipedia — Metrocom, LawPhil — RA 6975)

Challenges and Controversies

Policing Under Military Command

The defining controversy of the INP was structural: a “national police” placed under the Department of National Defense, officered by the Constabulary, and commanded by a serving general who simultaneously headed a major Armed Forces service. Critics treated the arrangement as the militarization of civil policing; RA 6975’s placement of the successor PNP under a civilian department with National Police Commission oversight is the direct legislative answer to that critique. (LawPhil — PD 765, LawPhil — RA 6975)

The Metropolitan Commands

The capital’s policing illustrated the problem most sharply. PD 421 (1974) had placed the Metropolitan Police Force of the Greater Manila Area under the Constabulary’s Metropolitan Command, created as a constabulary striking force in 1967, and under the INP the Metrocom commander remained concurrently chief of the metropolitan force and its districts — so Metro Manila was policed by a military command wearing a police title. After 1986 the arrangement was unwound: Metrocom became the PC Capital Region Command (1986), then the PNP Capital Region Command (1992), and finally the civilian National Capital Region Police Office. (LawPhil — PD 421, Wikipedia — Metrocom)

Removal of Local Control over Police

Section 9 of PD 765 transferred administrative supervision and control of local police, jail, and fire forces from city and municipal governments to the Chief of Constabulary — celebrated by centralizers as professionalization, criticized by others as the dismantling of local accountability, since mayors who no longer controlled their police still had to fund them under the decree’s transitory provisions. (LawPhil — PD 765)

Human-Rights and Integrity Record

The INP’s sixteen years coincided with the martial-law era and its documented abuses, and the force itself accumulated accusations of illegal activities, violence, abuse, and corruption severe enough that the government repeatedly publicized disciplinary and image-improvement programs; rank and personnel anomalies — promotions beyond statutory ceilings among them — were also recorded. These liabilities are the backdrop to the civilianization and internal-cleansing reforms written into RA 6975 and its 1998 successor, RA 8551, discussed in this wiki’s entry on the Philippine National Police. (Wikipedia, LawPhil — RA 6975)