Lanao CSOs consult stakeholders on community policing continue

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.  

 

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.

 

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.

 

    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.

 

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.

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