PNP will ask security firms to boost deployment in transport terminals

PNP Headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City. (Photo from the PNP Facebook page)

MANILA, Philippines — After a fatal shooting of a couple on a bus in Nueva Ecija, the Philippine National Police (PNP) Supervisory Office for Security and Investigation Agencies (PNP-SOSIA) said on Monday that it would order all security agencies to intensify their deployment in transport terminals.

“We will be issuing an advisory to all security agencies, especially to those who are manning different terminals, to intensify their deployment  [and] visual inspections,” PNP-SOSIA chief Police Brigadier General Gregory Bogñalbal told reporters in a press conference on Monday.

“Our guards need to strictly inspect the luggage entering the vehicles. So we should instruct them to do that,” he added in Filipino.

According to Bogñalbal, the PNP has also initiated an inspection of K9 units deployed in transportation terminals.

“We are looking into the capability of the dogs to determine if they are updated in their training and still capable of detecting what needs to be detected,” he said.

“We conducted samples and we are pleased to announce that all the dogs we checked are still capable of detecting explosives.”

Meanwhile, the PNP-SOSIA legal officer, Captain Geronimo de Guzman Jr., said that charges could be filed against both security guards and agencies if they could be proven negligent.

“They may be liable for [the] less grave offense for neglect of duty, and we will conduct an investigation if there is a formal complaint. Or even without a formal complaint, we have the power to conduct an investigation,” he said.

This was the PNP response to a Nov. 15 incident, wherein a woman and her live-in partner were shot dead by unidentified gunmen inside a bus while in transit in the town of Carranglan in Nueva Ecija.

READ: Victim’s son ‘person of interest’ in Nueva Ecija bus shooting

The gunmen shot the victims several times in the head and neck before getting off near a river in Barangay Minuli.