Saturday, November 25, 2006 Barangays’ aid urged in anti-terror program By Dante M. Fabian
* Tanods to be employed to thwart terror in community level
* Barangay police to assist cops in Malacañang-revised role as equal partner of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in anti-terror campaign
CLARK ECOZONE -- Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Ronaldo Puno and PNP Chief Oscar Calderon said that barangay tanods will be involved in the government’s campaign against terrorism.
According to Puno, the barangay police will be deputized as “force multipliers” in the implementation of security and anti-terror plans of local government units.
Puno disclosed this in a report to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during the Forum on Internal Security and Anti-Terrorism at the Mimosa Leisure Estate here last Thursday.
Puno said the barangay police will be activated to assist the PNP in its Malacañang-revised role as an equal partner of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the campaign to wipe out terrorism and other threats to national security, as spelled out in Executive Order 546.
“Local chief executives have agreed to fast-track their respective security plans to effectively thwart insurgency and terrorism at the community level, in support of the new, heightened role of the police in the government’s all-out war on this menace,” Puno said.
This developed as local executives presented proposals on internal security action plans that incorporated the inventory and registration of unlicensed firearms, improvement of intelligence-gathering capabilities via the establishment of management information systems with PNP technical support and assistance.
Local executives and the DILG also considered the provision of legal assistance to law enforcers who may get entangled in court cases in the performance of their duties.
Puno assured Arroyo and the participants that the DILG will extend its full support, including possible budgetary assistance, to these local security plans to ensure their full and effective implementation down to the barangays.
“At the end of the forum’s workshop, the participating governors, mayors and other local elective officials have decided to streamline, with the help of police officials and other stakeholders, their respective action plans by coming up with fresh ways to put the insurgency or terrorism issue on top of the security concerns of their respective provinces, cities and municipalities,” said Puno, who is also chairman of the National Police Commission (Napolcom).
“With guidance and support from their respective POCs (Peace and Order Councils), sharper focus will be given by LGU executives to these local security plans on such integral counterinsurgency programs as law enforcement, crime prevention and control, and the escalation of community development projects, most especially in insurgency-controlled or threatened localities,” he added.
Aside from Puno, present in the forum were Senator Juan Ponce-Enrile, National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales, and Napolcom commissioner Miguel Coronel.
They provided inputs that helped local government units (LGUs) draw up their respective security action plans at the close of the gathering.
During the forum, the DILG and LGUs agreed that the monitoring of these security plans will be done by the secretariats of the POCs in tandem with the regional and provincial PNP offices.
Puno said “government efforts to check these possible national security threats will require greater public vigilance down to the barangay level.”
“Hence the primacy for our police force to actively link up with LGUs and the communities, in order to put flesh to its ‘shared responsibility’ role with the armed forces in the total war on terrorism,” he said.
The PNP and LGUs are now working closely together in revitalizing the POCs, which, in turn, are to establish police auxiliary units or PAUs and deputize barangay tanods as force multipliers in the anti-terrorism campaign, Puno said.
Puno said the respective Integrated Area/Community Public Safety Plans of local governments are also being revised to give focus to insurgency.
