Duterte mulls mobile checkpoints nationwide

President Rodrigo Duterte, KARL NORMAN ALONZO / PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

DAVAO CITY—President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday urged the police and the military to revisit the way they handle security on the country’s roads, particularly in areas where the peace and order situations appear to be shaky.

Duterte suggested that instead of a permanent checkpoint, the military and the police could just put up mobile checkpoints to prevent sniper attacks.

“I was just observing the events of the days that passed and seemed to realize, we have to change in so many ways especially how we handle the highways and streets, long stretches of roads in our country,” he said in a speech at the opening of the shooting challenge involving special police and military units here.

Duterte said there were sniper attacks that have occurred and these targeted personnel manning checkpoints. He did not cite an instance but added that “it happened many times already.”

“The first that struck my mind was, a detachment soldier was… just fell on the ground. No one had attacked but he just fell dead and then followed by another event happening in a similar situation,” he said.

“And the realization came to my mind that nowadays, (the attack was staged far away). And so they just crawled to reach out soldiers, policemen and even Cafgu. Everyone manning the detachment and at a distance, they did not need to attack but they have acquired the skill also of sniping,” Duterte said.

He said the skill was apparently “perfected in the Middle East because of the hard targets (there).”

“They were in the buildings, all concrete and steel bars and to… could seek the cover, a good one and no amount of rifle fire could be enough to take down, one, two, or three,” he added.

That was why he said the military, in particular, had to “change the doctrines immediately.”

“Instead of detachment in the highways because you are only focused on those traversing them… you remove (the permanent checkpoints) and go for the mobile ones, in groups (patrol), in parallel, both sides of the highway,” he said.

Duterte said if the permanent checkpoints could not be avoided, there had to be a back-up unit manning a machine gun.

“Or if you want, you can mount a machine gun over a ridge far enough. But be wary still because the (attacker) could be just behind. Your gunner should be watching over the detachment,” he added. /jpv