SOLIDARITY MASS. Police officers join the Solidarity Mass, one of the activities organized by members of the Barug Team Rama, at the Plaza Independencia in Cebu City. The Solidarity Mass was held to show support to the police for their war against illegal drugs. At about the same time in the nearby Plaza Sugbo, Mayor Tomas Osmeña and the Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK) also held a Thanksgiving Mass. CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO
More control over communications which can lead to faster response time and a semblance of more confidentiality for the police.
Chief Supt. Debold Sinas, Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) director, cited in an interview on Sunday these advantages that the 50 handheld radios that Philippine National Police (PNP) in Camp Crame would provide the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO).
Sinas said that the PNP headquarters had already procured the 50 units of 400 kilohertz handheld radios, which he expected to be delivered to the CCPO within the month.
“There will be a new set up. (A) Very drastic change in responding (to incidents),” said Sinas.
New system
Supt. Royina Garma, CCPO director, said that they would put a system where the responses would be in sectors and the CCPO headquarters would now have full control of all the patrols.
With the new handheld radios and their own frequency, reports will now go directly through the tactical operations center at the CCPO headquarters.
“You must have noticed that the police were not the ones who would dispatch for police to respond to an incident. So now there would be changes in police responding from incidents in Cebu City with police directly doing the dispatching,” Sinas said in Filipino.
City donated radios
He said that at present the handheld radios that the CCPO were using were donated by the city government.
He said that both the city donated radios and the new radios were 400 Khz units.
But for the city donated radios, the Cebu City Command Center (C3) has control over them and their frequency.
However, Garma said that with the new radios and with the police now having their own frequency and dispatcher, they would still use the city-donated handheld radios since there would be reports and requests for police assistance going through the C3.
“So meron paring connection pero ang mangyayari dadaan sa tactical operations ng CCPO so that it will be our unit ang mag-dispatch to check yung report and to provide police assistance (So there will still be a connection but what will happen here is that the reports from city government will go through tactical operations of CCPO so that it will be our unit that will be dispatched to check the report and to provide police assistance),” said Garma.
Confidentiality
Sinas said that with the new handheld radios and new repeater, the police communication system would be better and would not be tapped by the criminals.
“Since police ang mo control, dili tanan especially would be criminals ang makadungog. There is a semblance of confidentiality (Since the police will already be in control, so not all especially would be criminal can monitor the radio. There is a semblance of confidentiality),” said Sinas.