Bohol barangay tanods to aid anti-crime teams

PUT a police officer in Bohol 's 1109 barangays and some 103 still would be cop-less. In this bleak scenario of ratio mismatch between local police forces and the more than a million residents here, Bohol Police Provincial Director PSSupt. Arturo Evangelista pressed for shared responsibility in crime prevention. In this light, he, along with Provincial Peace and Order Consultant, PSSupt. Sancho Bernales call for collaboration and support from Local Chief Executives who have operational control of the police and the activation of Barangay Crime Watch Centers using the province's more than 12,000 barangay tanods. Insisting that the cops are at the reactive side of crime prevention, many crimes can be curbed when the community eliminates the breeding grounds of crimes, Evangelista said.

He cited poverty, lack of information, personal conflicts and still several factors push one to commit crimes, and added the police can, in no way be there all the time. If activated and with the mulled use of another thousands of Civilian Volunteer Organizations across the province, they raise the odds of cops against criminals with the force multipliers in place. Even with the bright odds, both law enforcers who undisputedly have experience tucked in their belts agree that the community and the civil government plays important roles on the pro-active side of law enforcement. A community with a high level of crime awareness solves most of the problem, reasons PSSUpt Evangelista over the Kapihan sa PIA Thursday, August 10 and aired live over a local radio station.

The other pillars of the criminal justice system become moot when the community becomes vigilant of crimes and criminality. Here, law enforcement, prosecution, penology and rehabilitation becomes irrelevant when there are no criminals to be nabbed, prosecuted, jailed or rehabilitated, explains Bohol's top cop. In the current problem of reported crimes in Central Visayas , Evangelista explains that the usual up-trend of crimes is a national phenomenon, further saying that it is essentially why crime prevention month is set in September, the peak of the crime curve.

Besides, Central Visayas gets the blunt being second most prominent place to Manila and especially with the vigilante style of criminal elimination experienced in Cebu during the past months, criminality here should be noticeably high, Evangelist adds. Even then, with the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Bohol hopes to make use of the barangay tanods whom the local police have deputized as law enforcers. Citing Executive Order No. 546, DILG's Regidor Idayan said the establishment of the Barangay Crime Watch Centers is the response to curb criminality while police deputize them to augment local anti-crime teams.

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