Text-a-crime

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor PATRICK JAY PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

As part of its campaign to encourage more participation from the community in the drive against lawlessness, the Bacolod City Police Office officially launched a text-a-crime campaign hotline. The public can now help the police fight crime by reporting them to certain cellphone numbers.

City Police Officer in Charge Senior Supt. Celestino Guara assures the public that all information sent to these numbers will be acted on immediately and that the hotline will be available 24 hours to receive crime incident reports. The hotlines can also be used to receive complaints against erring policemen and abuses against women. Aside from that, would-be informants are also assured that their identity will be kept confidential. Guara believes that the text-a-crime hotline will reduce crime incidents in the city.

Any initiative by police officials to creatively harness the power of a ubiquitous technology such as cellphones and get the cooperation of the community, which happens to be the biggest force multiplier of any police force in this planet, is certainly laudable. The severely undermanned Philippine National Police definitely needs all the help it can get and, if executed properly, this text-a-crime hotline could be a very potent tool in the never-ending war against criminality.

Let us hope that this innovative program by the police does not die a natural death, similar to the fate of the much-publicized campaign against helmet-less motorcycle drivers. For this initiative to be effective, police officials have to inform the general public of the hotline numbers, ensure a timely response to the text messages or calls, crackdown on prank callers, and strongly discourage the policemen in charge from using the hotline cellphone units for personal matters.

Launching this text-a-crime program is the easy part. Making it work will involve a lot more effort from the BCPO and the public.*