After Cavite mall robbery: Cebu City police ask business sector's cooperation

CEBU, Philippines – The Cebu City police can prevent mall robbery similar to what happened in Dasmariñas, Cavite yesterday.

Senior Supt. Melvin Ramon Buenafe, director of the Cebu City Police Office, said they can do this by intensifying police visibility, vigilance by both foot and mobile patrolling, and conduct of more checkpoints.

"There's a reason to improve and increase police visibility after the Dasmariñas robbery," Buenafe said yesterday, adding the CCPO has enough personnel for deploy-ment but it needs a matter of time, though, in deploying them.

Yesterday, Buenafe met with representatives of different private sectors for incident management as part of the CCPO's activity in line with the celebration of the Na-tional Crime Prevention Week.

"We try to reach out to business sectors na magtambayayong ta for peace and order," Buenafe said.

The police official said he requested businessmen and establishment owners to do "target hardening" measures by, for one, installing security guards in proper places of the establishments.

Apart from enough lights outside the establishments, installing of CCTV cameras has also proven to be useful in discouraging robbers from pulling off any heists or in capturing them.

Civilian volunteers and other force multipliers of police also help the city police in preempting any criminality in the city, Buenafe said.

At least four robbers struck the SM Business Center in Dasmariñas, Cavite at past 10 a.m. yesterday, killing one of the two security guards who escorted the armored van that was supposed to load money to an automated teller machine at the Banco De Oro paying station.

The robbers fled with a still unidentified amount of cash, the report said. (FREEMAN)