Filipino now heads Aseanpol
PHILIPPINE Police Colonel David M. Vinluan has been named the executive director of Aseanpol, an organization composed of all chiefs of police in Southeast Asia that addresses transnational crimes.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Mr. Vinluan will be the first Filipino to hold the position since the organization was founded in 1981.
Aseanpol, which is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, deals with operational, enforcement and preventive measures against transnational crimes.
In his speech during the handover ceremony held on Monday in Kuala Lumpur, Mr. Vinluan vowed to “carry on the fight against organized threats of transnational crimes in the region.”
Mr. Vinluan, is also a member of the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Kosovo and had been a member of the UN Police Division in the UN Headquarters in New York.
In October last year, the Philippine Department of Justice (DoJ) said it was working with the Department of Interior and Local Government, the Supreme Court, and their regional counterparts to identify crime hotspots in the Philippines.
“We are committed to continued collaboration with our international partners to address the shared challenge of transnational organized crime,” Justice spokesman Jose Dominic F. Clavano IV said at a United Nations regional conference in Bangkok in October. — John Victor D. Ordoñez