CAMP GEN. VICENTE LIM, Calamba City -- Three regional police offices in the country plan to issue a "unified sticker and color coding systems" for motorcycles as one strategy to rid their areas of motorcycle-riding criminals.
Police regional office (PRO) of the National Capital Region (NCR), Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) and Central Luzon (Region 3) proposed this during the first Joint Technical Working (TWG) Group conference on Strategic Initiatives against motorcycle-riding suspects (MRS) held at the Police Regional Office (PRO4A) multi-purpose center here Friday.
Both the PRO 3 and PRO4A have their sticker system strategy being implemented through their “Oplan Clean Riders Alpha” and “Oplan Checkmate,” respectively.
The conference attendees believe that a “Unified Sticker System” for motorcycles in the three regions could easily identify the issuing unit of the sticker based on its color.
Host Calabarzon Regional Police Director Chief Supt. Ma. O R. Aplasca said the conference was held considering the geographical proximity of the three regions and the prevalence of the MRS in their areas.
Aplasca also said that the first meeting here and soon to be hosted by PRO 3 and NCR in the next subsequent meetings aim to come up with more vigorous strategies on the operability, coordination, and initiative against motorcycle-riding suspect, especially the more common “riding-in-tandem” assailants.
“We have to clarify that we are not holding this conference because of the increasing incidence of the MRS, but rather (because of the) need to collaborate and coordinate our efforts to rid the streets and communities of this motorcycle riding criminals,” Aplasca said.
He also said that the technical working group will be reviewing the crime solution strategies on the installations of more CCTVs in the communities, including proposals for the installations of global positioning system (GPS) on motorcycles to track down suspects.
“The CCTVs greatly helped but we are also coordinating with the highway patrol group and the need to engage the communities and neighborhoods to address this crime, especially on shooting and murder perpetrated by the MRS,” he added.
The chiefs of the Regional Operations Division (RODs) of the three regional offices presented their activity plans, strategic initiatives and best practices against MRS while the regional intelligence divisions focused discussions on intelligence sharing to identify crime groups/syndicates utilizing motorcycles.
Aplasca admitted the prevalence of the use of motorcycles in carnapping, robbery, shooting incidents among other crimes.
“In spite of our efforts in formulating strategies to curb incidents perpetrated by these Motorcycle Riding Suspects, we still have to come up with short and long term recommendations to fully address this problem. We will remove them slowly from the streets,” PRO3 Regional Director Police Chief Supt. Amador V. Corpus said.
Quezon City Police District (QCPD) Director Chief Supt. Guillermo Lorenzo T. Eleazar shared that the National Capital Region’s best practice includes the installation of CCTV’s (closed-circuit television) on streets in coordination with their Local Government Units (LGUs) and business establishments that are required to put up CCTVs.
“While our efforts require the ‘whole of the government approach’, let us all take advantage of the use of modern technology such as CCTVs and the GPS,” Eleazar said.
The Calabarzon regional police headquarters also reported during the joint conference a decrease in 2017 of the Riding-in-Tandem incidents by 4.48 percent compared with the 2016 figure.
This was attributed to the enhanced visibility of policemen on the streets and the setting up of checkpoints and police assistance desks in the localities.
“We are not being complacent by the decrease of our records in the PRO4A, that is why we are intensifying our police operations and come-up with programs to address this incidents,” Aplasca said.
One of the gray areas, however, in addressing the MRS is that the criminals are sporting helmets as required by law and the now common use of face masks thus they cannot easily be identified.
Representatives from the Land Transportation Office (LTO) and Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) are also encouraged to join the series of meetings to be conducted at PRO3 and NCRPO respectively.
Aplasca said a Joint OPLAN will be crafted by the TWG of the three police regional offices after completing the three subsequent meetings, which will be presented to the PNP National Headquarters for assessment and approval. (PNA)
