Lanao CSOs consult
stakeholders on community policing
By Jun Enriquez
Iligan City (September 30,
2015) - Consultation phase is the third phase in the current community policing
process implemented by the “Bantay Kalilintad” means peace watch, a network
partner of the Security Reform Initiative (SRI) in Lanao del Norte and Iligan
City to implement community policing project in Mindanao, especially in the
Bangsamoro areas, supported by the British Council. The community policing project is implemented
in the proposed Bangsamoro area in response to the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law
(BBL) states that the “Bangsamoro shall adopt community policing.” The CSOs
Bantay Kalilintad in Lanao del Norte and Iligan City implemented the community
policing project in the model areas of Munai, Tagoloan, Kolambugan, all of
Lanao del Norte and Rogongon, Iligan City.
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| Participants on trainors' training in Samal Island, August 13, 2015 |
The community policing
processes started its implementation in the Baseline phase to assess the peace
and order, and security situation in the identified pilot areas. The second
phase is the Awareness raising, to let the people know the roles of the
community, police and community policing. It also discussed on how the people
understands the five basic principles of community policing such as the Service
delivery, Partnerships, Problem solving, Empowerment and Accountability.
Brief information on community
policing principles was shared for better understanding like Service delivery,
is a service oriented promoting the concept of community as client, and police
as provider. The Partnership principle is to determine the community needs and
policing priorities to promote police accountability and effectiveness. The
Problem solving principle is the actual and potential causes of crime and
conflict within the community can be jointly identified and analyzed with the
results guiding development of measures that address the problems in the short,
medium and long term.
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| Phillip Thomson, center standing, facilitated the trainors training in Samal Island resort, August 13, 2015. |
Problem solving also involves
conflict resolution and other creative methods to address service delivery and
police community relations problems. The community policing is an agent of
Empowerment, creating a sense of joint responsibility and a joint capacity for
addressing issues of concern to the campus community and personnel and this
will require training about community policing so that everyone has a
constructive role. The Accountability principle is achieved by making the
provider responsible to the client, creating mechanisms through which the
police are accountable for addressing the needs and concerns of the community
they serve. It is important to realize that after any action of a police
official there will be the question of accountability for their actions.
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| Participants on consultation activity held in Munai, Lanao del Norte, September 23, 2015 |
The objective of the
Consultation phase is to come up with an outcome that will result in the
development of the community policing strategy and the current project will be
finalized in the Feedback phase. The consultation phase will focus on the
details of the five principles on community policing. Consultation phase
activity was already implemented initially in Lanao del Norte and conducted in
the two pilot areas, in Tagoloan, Lanao del Norte on September 19 and in Munai,
Lanao del Norte on September 23. In addition, the SRI have conducted the
multi-stakeholders’ forum on September 22 in Iligan City. The forum was
attended with an average of 40 participants and discussed about the details of
the principles of community policing.
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| Participants during the consultation in Inagongan, Tagoloan, Lanao del Norte, September 19, 2015. |
In the principle of Service
delivery, is best to know the services of the police to deliver based on the
five sub-principles. First, Customer service, is to know and describe the good
qualities of a good police officer. Second, Accessibility, is the wishes of the
people to access police services. Third, Visibility is the effectiveness of the
police visible to the people at all times. Fourth, Engagement, is the manner of
the police work of doing to improve the relationship with the community. Fifth,
Re-assurance, is to know the police doing to make the community feel safe.
In the principle of Partnership,
this will establish the police and community working together. In the Problem
solving principle, will establish the respective roles of police and community
to identify and solve problems encountered. In the principle of Accountability,
is to ensure the police and community perform their respective roles and agreed
actions. Lastly, the Empowerment principle, is working with the available
resources and the things the Philippine National Police (PNP) could do to make
the problems solve easier within the community.
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| Participants during the multi-stakeholders' forum in Iligan City, September 22, 2015. |
During the forums the participants
have common understanding in the five principles of community policing. In the
Service delivery, the participants wanted to have an effective police service,
should wear complete uniform during the day of duty, law abiding, visible in
the community, gender and culture sensitive, pro-active, will not impose
culture of fear, conduct patrol 24/7, establish community relations, among
others; In the partnership principle, the participants agreed that the police
and community shall be partner in some social activities such as disaster
response, medical missions, tree planting, peace and security and many others;
in Problem solving, the police must have open line communication, police must
share to capacitate the community on legal education, community must cooperate
with the police in the fight against crimes, among others; in the
Accountability principle, the police must be transparent in their operation,
comply all the elements of the searches and arrests operations, establish peace
and order plan with the police and community, work and assess the plan
frequently, etc. ; in the Empowerment principle, conduct symposium on the
rights of women and children, training on disaster risk reduction and
management, there must be hotline numbers, police patrol car, the police and
community should be trained human rights education, and many others.
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| Kathline Tolosa, left, at Samal Island resort on a live interview by Malyne Gungob at DXTA Real Radio, Iligan City on Aug. 13, 2015, assisted, at right, by Jun Enriquez. |
During the training of
facilitators on August 13, 2015 in Paradise Island Resort, Samal Island, Davao
del Norte, Ms. Kathline Tolosa, SRI Executive Director, emphasized that the
consultation phase is the most important phase of the community policing as it
is where the inputs of the communities will be solicited to form the community
policing strategy. She said that the objective of the community policing is
about the design of the policing that depends on the needs of the community to
address the prevailing problems and issues on peace and order, internal
security matters. Whatever it was already implemented in other countries but in
our local communities they are the final people to decide what type of
community policing they wanted to have on their community. It is very important
to have consultations to address the questions from the community and it will
be the basis in the formulation of the action plan for an effective community
policing. She said at the end of the day, there is a need for the Bantay
Bayanihan partners (Bantay Kalilintad in Lanao del Norte) to be on the same
page regarding the questions they are asking as well as the answer they are
looking for.
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| Army Capt. Belmonte of 15th IB presented workshop results during the multi-stakeholders forum in Iligan City. |
In the same event in Samal
Island, Phillip Thomson, Community Policing expert and team leader of the
British Council, presented a short update regarding the current status of the
project. He said that the Awareness phase of the project is almost complete and
that about 23,000 face to face engagements have been made, which is 3 to 4
times of what he expected. In addition, several thousands of people through
media, i.e. posters, radio, interview, television, online, etc., have also been
reached. He also emphasized the importance of the Consultation phase because
the project believes that the consultation process is a key part of community
policing, and is about asking what the people want for community policing, how
they want the service to be delivered. This also sets aside this community
policing from other community policing strategy because other community
policing projects got their strategies from the shelf and transplanted it to
the host communities.
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| Jun Enriquez, left, on a one-on-one interview with Phillip Thomson |
Phillip Thomson had a wide experience
on community policing and devout his time in Police service and served his own
country, the United Kingdom (UK), for decades. As an expert on community
policing he served in many countries like Abu Dhabi, Kenya, Myanmar, Africa and
many others. Thomson said that community policing is a mindset, a way of
policing, not a law, a community together with the police to solve problems on
peace and order. He said that there is a need to engage the community based on
its culture. Thomson said that community and the police in United Kingdom (UK)
was well engaged on community policing, established mature relationship between
the police and the community, and the UK government is very supportive. The
community policing works on the post conflict in Northern Ireland, with similar
peace situation of the Bangsamoro in Mindanao. Thomson said that community
policing is a real opportunity for the Bangsamoro people because this is the
first time for them to experience in their life and should take the said
opportunity to shape the Bangsamoro community for good. With reports & photos by Malyne D. Gungob
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