City dad calls for revival of anti-crime groups in campuses

To involve students in the government's campaign against criminality, Cebu City Councilor Edgardo Labella is asking the Department of Education to revive the student crime prevention committees in different schools.

Labella, in a proposed resolution, said that setting up such committees would not only help increase the involvement of students but would also serve as venue to heighten their awareness over the adverse effects of illegal drugs and activities in which the youth themselves are the victims.

The Student Crime Prevention Committee or SCPC is a DepEd program initiated sometime in 1994, which reportedly made a dent in curbing the involvement of youth and students in illicit activities.

Labella also said that revitalizing the crime prevention committees in the campuses is also way to assist the various law enforcement agencies in addressing the perceived nagging youth crime in the city.

He cited that a number of school-based youth organizations such as fraternities have been involved in violent confrontations, which usually take place outside school premises.

"There seems to be an imperative need to reactivate SCPCs in schools so that the youth awareness over ongoing efforts to involve the community in the government's stepped-up drives against criminality in this city will be enhanced," Labella's resolution read.

The National Police Commission will also help coordinate, supervise and monitor the implementation of SCPCs as part of their commitment to a memorandum of understanding it had earlier forged with the DepEd and the Commission on Higher Education on the setting up of these campus-based crime prevention committees.

Under the MOU, the president and vice president of the Supreme Student Council of the school will sit as chairperson and vice chairperson, respectively, of the SCPC. The secretary of the Supreme Student Council will serve as such in the committee in a concurrent capacity.

The class presidents at the high school level and all courses at the college level, along with the Corps Commanders of the Reserved Officers Training Corps (ROTC) and CAT will comprise the membership of the SCPC. In the absence of the class president, the vice president will sit as member of the committee.

A Board of Advisers will be on hand to provide guidance to each SCPC. The school head will chair the Board of Advisers, with the chief of the local police as vice chairperson. The adviser of the Supreme Student Council, the punong barangay where the school is situated, and the president of the Parent-Teachers Community Association (PTCA) or Parents Teachers Association (PTA) will sit as members of the board. - Garry B. Lao