Tacloban village execs asked to assist PNP to secure peace and order

TACLOBAN CITY, July 12 -- The city government of Tacloban had asked help from village officials to help them in maintaining peace and order in the city amid the ongoing black-out.

City Administrator Lawyer Irene Chu had asked the Office of Barangay Affairs to instruct village chiefs to activate their Barangay Peace Keeping Force locally known as Barangay Tanod to help local policemen in ensuring peace and order.

“The Philippine National Police will need help of auxiliary peace keeping force in Tacloban to maintain peace and order while waiting for electricity to restore,” Chu said.

Tacloban City has a total of 322 police personnel securing the more than 250,000 population of the city.

“We need to activate all our barangay tanod and our volunteer groups especially at night,” was Atty Chu’s instructions to the Office of Barangay Affairs personnel.

If possible instead of doing patrol and duty at day time, barangay peacekeeping force will do it at night time to augment police personnel in securing villages in the city.

Criminal elements may take advantage at the current situation of the city which has been plunged in darkness due to failure of power generation companies to supply the power needs of Eastern Visayas after the 6.5 earthquake in July 6 and 5.4 magnitude earthquake in July 10.

The ongoing power outage had resulted for some establishments in the city to limit their business hours operation to reduce cost on fuel they used to electrify their businesses.

Among those that shortened their operations are the Tacloban Banker’s Association that had passed a resolution shortening their operation from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (Roel T. Amazona)