Mall janitors can watch for criminals – QCPD

MANILA, Philippines - All mall employees, including janitors, can actively watch out for criminals, a Quezon City Police District (QCPD) official said yesterday.

“If you are cleaning the CR (comfort room) and observe someone suspicious there, you should report immediately. There had been incidents when criminals had assembled their weapons in the toilet,” QCPD chief Senior Superintendent Richard Albano said as police officials joined the annual tactical inspection of security personnel at SM North EDSA yesterday morning.

“If you are manning the parking lot and notice someone suspicious onboard one of the vehicles, you should immediately inform the security guards,” the police official said.

According to Albano, the prevention of crimes in malls is the job not just of the security guards.

He also warned that the QCPD would be testing the capability of the mall’s security providers in the coming days.

“We would be deploying people who would try to smuggle guns into the mall,” he said.

According to Albano, he would report to the mall management if the undercover police officer would be able to smuggle the gun into the mall.

“It would be up to the mall management (if it would sanction) the concerned security agency,” he said.

Albano personally assisted mall guards in inspecting mall-goers as operating hours began. The police official went to the extent of demonstrating to mall guards the proper way of frisking and detecting if a firearm is hidden in a person’s private parts.

‘Costly lesson’

Mall officials also bared that before the robbery at Megamall on Saturday, a similar inspection was done on Friday.

“Nasingitan tayo (Someone got the better of us),” said engineer Antolin Paule, SM Malls senior vice president for engineering and security affairs, referring to Saturday’s incident.

He reminded security providers not to be complacent in their jobs. “Let’s be cautious and do the proper frisking and way of using the metal detector. Let’s not be too relaxed,” Paule said. “The important thing is vigilance and alertness. Let’s avoid talking and chatting while on the job.”

Felipe Buena, SM Malls senior vice president for customer relations service, called the incident a “costly learning (experience).” He admitted that while malls are “very vulnerable” to such attacks, security personnel and the police must continuously assess these threats.

“Let’s brace up to make sure similar incidents would never happen again,” he said.

Buena also took a dig at the Eastern Police District over last Saturday’s incident.

He started by noting that Albano came with practically all of his key officers yesterday, including his deputies, Senior Superintendent Joel Pagdilao, Senior Superintendent Neri Ilagan and Senior Superintendent Procopio Lipana.

Also present during the inspection were Albano’s intelligence division head Superintendent Rodrigo Bauto Jr. and Station 2 commander Superintendent Pedro Sanchez.

Bueno claimed that during last Friday’s inspection at Megamall, there was only one official from the EPD present. “(They were) not in full force, unlike here,” he said.