MANILA, Philippines — In a bid to improve their response to crime incidents, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil wants closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras interconnected.
Speaking to members of the Manila Overseas Press Club on Tuesday night, Marbil said a majority of commercial establishments have CCTVs, but the issue is interconnectivity.
“We are requiring, under the law, that all establishments have CCTVs but we are not interconnected, that’s one problem,” he said.
Marbil cited a case wherein it took police officers several hours to arrest a suspect in a shooting incident in Makati City.
He said the shooting occurred at around 3 p.m. but police officers managed to apprehend the gunman at around 6 a.m. the following day.
What happened, Marbil said, is that probers had to check CCTV footages of the shooting from the area where it happened up to the roads where the suspect went with his getaway vehicle.
By the time police arrested the suspect, he had already changed the license plate of his vehicle.
If the CCTVs were interconnected, Marbil believes the gunman would have been caught in a matter of hours.
Apart from interconnectivity, Marbil also wants CCTVs to be equipped with artificial intelligence capabilities.
For Marbil, the barometer in saying the PNP is effective is when people can walk the streets without fearing for their safety.
He recalled his visit in Taiwan where he did not see a single police officer while walking along a road at around 1 a.m.
Marbil was in awe as there was no crime in Taiwan, which he attributed to the presence of CCTVs.
He called on the Congress to propose interconnectivity among CCTVs of establishments and the police.