City Police might create text-a-crime special unit

The Cebu City Police Office might soon create a special police unit to handle its "text-a-crime" project and directly respond to text messages from the public about crime incidents in the city.

Text hotline operator SPO1 Barkley Fuentes told The Freeman yesterday that CCPO acting director Supt. Melvin Gayotin has plan for a special unit that would immediately act on text messages from complainants instead of referring the matter to police stations.

Fuentes said there have been instances, especially during nighttime, when a particular police station could not respond outright the referred complaint because of lack of available policemen for deployment to the crime scene.

Earlier this month, the CCPO launched the text hotline after Police Regional Office director, C/Supt. Silverio Alarcio ordered all police units to have official cellphones to receive directly any complaint from the public.

The CCPO operations section, which handled the text project since its inception, has already received 106 text messages from residents complaining illegal activities in their areas.

There have been numerous prank texts however but police authorities said the public reaction to the project was good enough.

A number of text messages contained sensitive information, involving policemen and barangay officials allegedly engaged in gambling and illegal drugs, said PO3 Michael Bentolan, another text hotline operator.

Bentolan said the CCPO validates and verifies first these kinds of information, adding that most texters have requested the text hotline to keep their identities secret.

Gayotin has yet to confirm if the plan to create a special unit for the text-a-crime project would either push through or not at all. - Edwin Ian Melecio