QCPD taps fleet of good bikers, hoping to outsmart the bad

EASY RIDERS, NO EASY TASK Volunteers joining the Quezon City Police District’s campaign against criminals-on-bikes hit the road on Thursday. The QCPD says these “force multipliers” will don special vests and will serve as its extra eyes and ears. MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

“Tipsters” on bikes—that’s how the Quezon City Police District is calling them.

In yet another campaign to make the world smaller for criminals on motorbikes, the QCPD has enlisted the help of some 2,000 civilian motorcycle riders, giving them special vests indicating their plate numbers so the public would recognize them as the extra eyes and ears of law enforcement.

The riders cruised through the city streets in a show of force Thursday morning.

In a sendoff ceremony held at the Araneta Center in Cubao, Philippine National Police chief Director General Alan Purisima said the QCPD project was an “innovative response” to gunmen or robbers on motorbikes who continue to strike with impunity in the metropolis.

“This is an innovation and these riders will be used by the police to go after those criminals,” Purisima said.

Under the “Anti-Motorcycle Riding Criminals” program, volunteer riders will wear vests that display their license plate numbers and will act as tipsters against criminals on wheels, said QCPD director Senior Supt. Richard Albano.

These civilians will serve as “force multipliers” for the PNP, Albano said, adding that joining this fleet of mobile informants is purely voluntary.

“Criminals are very innovative in doing their evil deeds, so we must be innovative as well. We are smarter than they are.”

Critics might scoff at the project and doubt its effectiveness, the official said. “But why don’t you like it? If you’re a good citizen, what are you hiding?”

The second phase of the project would have the 12 QCPD substations forming their own pools of volunteers.

QCPD deputy director for administration Senior Supt. Joel Pagdilao said their police counterparts in the cities of Muntinlupa, Manila, Makati, Pasig, Marikina, Las Pinas and in Bulacan province had also started recruiting their own bike-riding volunteers.