Palace welcomes Lacson advice to enhance mobile checkpoints

Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Malacañang on Monday welcomed the suggestion of Sen. Panfilo Lacson to maintain and enhance mobile police checkpoints in the country to suppress crime and the trade of illegal drugs and other contrabands.

Presidential Communications Office Secretary Martin Andanar clarified that President Rodrigo Duterte was only referring to road checkpoints when he ordered “all checkpoints dismantled.”

READ: Duterte orders all checkpoints dismantled

“Senator Lacson suggested to have more mobile checkpoints instead, meaning more policemen conducting mobile patrol duties, or policemen inside their patrol cars plying around an area.  This is different from the fixed (road) checkpoints where policemen are in one area asking motorists to stop,” Andanar said in a statement.

“We welcome this suggestion of former PNP Chief and now Senator Lacson as we find better means on how to thwart possible threats of violence without causing undue inconvenience to the public,” he added.

Saying that they had only caused public convenience, Duterte on Saturday ordered all checkpoints dismantled and that the police should make such a security arrangement “only if it is necessary, only if there is specific reason to do it.”

The President gave out the order a day after Mayor Samsudin Dimaukom of Datu Saudi Ampatuan town in Maguindanao and nine of his men were killed in an alleged gunfight with the police in a security checkpoint in Makilala, North Cotabato. JE/rga