MANILA, Philippines — Officers of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) will undergo immersion in mosques as part of their cultural sensitivity training, in the wake of the criticism on a memorandum seeking to obtain statistics on Muslim youths in Metro Manila.
NCRPO director Maj. Gen. Debold Sinas said this aims to orient non-Muslim police officers about the culture of Muslim Filipinos and to allow them to observe the latter’s rituals.
“One day niyan is ‘yung immersion sa mosque, kasi noong ginawa namin ito (training) sa Region 9 at sa ARMM (Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao) in order to appreciate further, kailangan dumalaw ka ng mosque and you observe the rituals then ‘yung administrator or imam sa mosque they will explain (the practices),” he said in an interview with reporters.
(One day of training will be for immersion in a mosque. When we did this in Region 9 and ARMM, we required the police officers to visit mosques so they can observe the rituals. The administrator or imam will then explain their practices.)
The seminar for NCRPO cops started at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City on Thursday, catering to 75 police officers. It was conducted by the Islamic Institute of the University of the Philippines.
Sinas said seminars on cultural sensitivity will now be regularly conducted year-round. He said the succeeding trainings will be held in the five districts of the NCRPO.
According to the police official, the target attendees of these seminars are investigators or the first responders to crime incidents.
In explaining the coverage of the program, Sinas also acknowledged the lapses committed by the NCRPO in communicating the leaked memorandum, which later earned criticism from the Muslim community.
READ: ‘Profiling’ memo scrapped after Muslims protest
Police General Archie Gamboa earlier explained the memorandum was supposed to be used for “future police-community affairs development programs” of the Philippine National Police.
“We made some mistakes. We accept there were misunderstandings… Maganda ‘yung intention namin (Out intention was good). Siguro (Maybe) it’s about how we communicated it. Doon lang kami siguro medyo mahina (Perhaps that was where we were weak). That’s why we are trying to reconnect with our constituents,” said Sinas.
He also said that the scrapped memorandum will not be revived “for the time being.”