MANILA – Some of the newly purchased body-worn cameras (BWCs) of the Philippine National Police (PNP) will be used during President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s final State-of-the-Nation-Address (SONA) on July 26.
“For Metro Manila, our different police stations were issued BWCs and as per arrangement, ito ‘yung mga sinasabi natin na mga events na gagamitin natin sila, (the (SONA) is one of the events that we are saying that the BWCs can help secure) and aside from that meron tayong alternative recording devices, itong mga cellphones na gagamitin (we have alternative recording devices like cell phones that we can use),” PNP chief, Gen. Guillermo Eleazar told reporters in Camp Crame on Friday.
He stated that the BWCs will support the police tasked with securing the SONA in documenting the security situation in their stations.
National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) chief, Maj. Gen. Vicente Danao Jr., also stated that the BWCs will be utilized to monitor the situation in vital regions to identify which ones require additional police visibility.
So far, the PNP has distributed 2,696 BWCs to 171 police stations and units around the country.
“Accordingly, we will be deploying around 15,000 personnel, including na itong mga augmentation sa atin (this include our augmentation forces), and for the PNP, there will be around 11,800 police personnel, 9,900 or almost 10,000 coming from NCRPO and around 1,900 coming from other units,” he added.
He further said that 3,300 non-PNP personnel or those from the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, and other force multipliers would be added to the police force.
