ILOILO City – The Iloilo City Police Station 1 tapped around 6,000 force multipliers in the City Proper district for its campaign against criminality and insurgency.
Non-government organizations (NGOs) and other private groups are a big help, according to Police Captain Shella Mae Sangrines, chief of Police Station 1.
“They will provide us information about the presence of armed group and lawless elements in their barangays,” Sangrines said.
Fifty-four representatives from transport groups, Iloilo Terminal Market Transient Association, Anti-Crime and Community Response Team, and Office of the Sangguniang Kabataan Federation, among others, recently sat down with the police to discuss security measures.
Personnel of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) in Region 6 were invited. They explained to the participants their role in combatting terrorism, as well as the purpose of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
“They educated the participants about the decades-long insurgency problem and their vital role in ending it,” Sangrines stressed.
On the other hand, Police Colonel Uldarico Garbanzos, director of the Iloilo City Police Office, is looking forward to a fruitful partnership between the support groups and the police.
“To win this battle, the active involvement of the police and the community is a must,” Garbanzos said. “The Philippine National Police is part of the NTF-ELCAC formed by President Rodrigo Duterte through Executive Order No. 70 last December 2018, institutionalizing a whole-of-nation approach in attaining inclusive and sustainable peace./PN
