PNP holds Mall Security Summit: Open your bags, please

If you are entering a shopping mall and security asks to check your bag, submit willingly. It’s for your own safety.

Many people do not know that. They complain about security guards’ poking deep into their bags and even ask whether those guards know what they are looking for.

Shopping mall owners are aware of this and they ask their security agencies to instruct the guards to be more polite and careful in checking shoppers’ bags.

But terrorists carrying bombs are not the only threat to public safety at shopping malls today. There is a new threat: Robbers attacking targets at shopping malls. These criminals don’t care who gets hurt or killed, that’s why security at shopping malls needs to be tightened.

On Tuesday, police officials met with the heads of security of the country’s largest shopping malls to discuss how to improve protection of public safety at their establishments.

The discussion was called to prevent repeats of daring shopping-mall robberies such as the attack at the Robinsons Galleria in March.

During the 1st Mall Security Summit at Camp Crame, police officials from the Civil Security Group and Supervisory Office for Security and Investigation Agency (Sosia) and representatives from SM Supermalls, Robinsons Malls and other large shopping complexes in Metro Manila discussed measures to ensure the safety of shoppers.

Sosia is the police agency that regulates and oversees the operations of private security companies.

About 150 mall security managers and security service contractors participated in the day-long meeting.

In his keynote address, Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo observed that going to shopping malls has become a pastime for Filipinos so that every day a large number of them are exposed to danger. “That’s why we need to look at mall security,” Robredo said.

He said that when violence erupts in a shopping mall here, it makes the headlines not only in the country but also in other countries, as foreign service missions in Manila watch the country for the safety of their nationals traveling to the Philippines.

Asked if new security measures were needed to counter threats like armed criminals, Robredo said: “For me, the challenge there is to implement the guidelines to the letter.”

He explained that the key to safety at shopping malls is not how the checking of bags at the entrance is done or the shoppers’ submitting to security check, but the full enforcement of security rules.

On March 29, robbers attacked a money-changer shop at the Robinsons Galleria mall in Quezon City. They fired their guns and lobbed grenades as they made their escape. One of the grenades exploded, killing one person and wounding several others.

But not all violent incidents at shopping malls involved robbers. In September last year, a 13-year-old boy shot his 16-year-old friend before turning the gun on himself at an SM mall in Mexico, Pampanga.