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Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Despite Tomas, police to use secret marshals
Fielding secret marshals is just a temporary remedy to the rising incidents of robberies in Metro Cebu, Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Director Silverio Alarcio Jr. clarified yesterday.
While Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said he is against the idea, Alarcio compared fielding covert operatives in public vehicles to first aid treatment, until they come up with “lasting police measures.”
“I agree with him. If we think long-term, it is not advisable. It is expensive and it will drain our resources,” Alarcio told reporters.
The director plans to add 100 personnel to the more than 800 assigned at the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) soon. They will be taken either from the Regional Mobile Group or the batch of police recruits expected to graduate soon.
For his part, Osmeña is proposing to seek the help of government employees residing in the city to help in the campaign against crime.
The mayor wants to expand the community-based Oplan Pakingsan-durot to include employees of government agencies, who he said could be tapped to create a network within the barangay.
Networking
“We will try to organize government employees and establish a government force at the sitio and barangay level. I know this will take time, but what we really need is networking in the bara-ngays. Secret marshals will not be very effective because we also cannot have all our policemen out on the streets,” the mayor said yesterday.
He proposed to tap the Association of Regional Executives of National Agencies (Arena) 7 to come up with a computerized database of employees of City Hall and other National Government offices.
The expanded Oplan Pakigsandurot, composed of government workers, police and barangay officials and tanods, will be asked to hold meetings by sitios on how they can help prevent crimes.
Osmeña is optimistic the expanded Oplan Pakigsandurot, which was revived in 2001, will work in most barangays.
But he also admitted there may be challenges in a few areas where there is a high incidence of petty crimes and illegal drugs peddling, like Barangays Duljo-Fatima, Ermita, Pasil, Mambaling and Pardo.
Police officials will be studying the suggestions of the drivers group to enhance the conduct of random checkpoints and the deployment of beat patrols.
Blue lights
Alarcio also wants his men to “touch base with the community” by tapping the barangays to use deserving tanods as auxiliary police forces.
Alarcio, who attended the Asean Cebu Organizing Committee meeting, said they will also push for the strict implementation of emergency blue lights atop public utility vehicles.
Aside from Cebu City, Alarcio also wants other cities and towns to adopt the program.
Drivers are encouraged to press a button that would turn on the blue lights on top of the vehicles, to let those outside know that a robbery is in progress.
Asked why they did not use the blue lights, the drivers told Alarcio that they did not bother because they did not see policemen on the streets.
The idea of fielding police detectives or secret marshals is good but getting the community involved in the fight against crime will be more effective, said Lapu-Lapu City Police Chief Louie Oppus.
It may also be unwise to spread the police force “too thinly”, like having a policeman in every public utility vehicle, as that will leave some areas unguarded.
Fieldwork
“I’m sure they (community leaders) know the people in their barangay, the newcomers, new faces, potential criminals and their movements,” Oppus said.
If they provide all these information to the police, the lawmen can be more effective in crime prevention, such as by conducting more patrols or checkpoints, or increasing police visibility where needed, he added.
With the arrival of a second batch of new policemen from Western Visayas last weekend, Lapu-Lapu City now has the biggest number of PNP augmentation forces from other regions in the Visayas and Mindanao.
The city has 518 new policemen to secure the Asean summit in December. Mandaue City has 450 additional operatives, while Cebu City has 275 from other regions.
Director Alarcio, however, also wants supervisors to keep a close eye on the rookie cops from other regions under the field training program (FTP).
Marshals
“Yung iba nakatayo lang, nagtetext, nagkwentuhan (Some of them just stand there, texting or chatting). Supervisors should go out and check what the FTP personnel are doing,” he added.
Since most policemen under the FTP program do not have firearms, Alarcio reiterated an order that those who are unarmed should be accompanied by those who carry issued firearms.
As one partnership, the Cebu City Police Office and a transport organization have agreed to help each other with the deployment of covert police personnel in jeepneys.
Acting Director Melvin Gayotin met with the transport organization last Monday night to solicit their help in the “secret marshals” plan. (MEA/JST/LCR/OCP)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 20, 2006 issue)
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