THE issue on intelligence operation is a very hot topic in the city today after the two failed assassination attempts happened against officials within a week span, thank God the gunmen failed to accomplish their evil mission.
A lot of opinions coming from different sources, some claiming to be experts, accuse the police and other peace and order actors like the intelligence community of failing to gather timely intelligence in order to stop the said assassination attempts.
As a member of hardworking police force in the city, I was moved to reflect whether there really was a failure of intelligence. With much thought, I realized that there was indeed a failure. If there was none, the assassinations would not have happened.
I was also led to ask if there really is such a thing as perfect intelligence operation. Does it exist?
Let us consider the most powerful nations in the world, USA and Russia. In Russia, they recorded seven murder cases in every 100,000 population a year according to Russian Federal State Statistics Service. In USA, about 7,000 murder cases recorded in 2017 and about three murder cases in every 100,000 population according to Manor Cities Chiefs Association Violent Crimes Survey.
Based on these facts, even very sophisticated countries which we admired to have the best intelligence manpower and equipment still have problems in murder cases.
Therefore, the crimes that happen in their countries will tell us that there is no such thing as perfect intelligence operations since they still have crimes in their area. It means that they have their shares of failure of intelligence, the same with what happened in the city recently.
The only difference between the Philippines and these countries is that they have lesser crimes compared to us. This is because of the help of their higher level intelligence capability and the education and support of their community.
What happened in the city happens in other places too. That murder and the rest of the other crimes can't be prevented by just a simple word of recommendation such as intensified intelligence works. Keeping away from criminals must seriously be exercised every second by the public while the police executes their crime prevention strategies. In Short, it must be a shared effort. Since the PNP and other intelligence community can't gather all intelligence to prevent crimes, the people must do their share to protect themselves so that criminals will not have the opportunity to execute their plans. After all, it’s the public who benefits from the situation.
If all of us will be security conscious all the time then it would be hard to be the target of criminals. There will be less crime if not none at all. Even by reporting crimes immediately to the authorities will greatly help solve the problem already.
Rest assured however, that the PNP is doing everything it can but we need people’s support. Criminals will only be successful if the target is passive in protecting himself and others. Its high time that the people should understand that before they entrust their safety to others, they should make sure that they ensure their safety first.