SPD launches 'Freddie the Fingerprint' campaign

MANILA, Philippines - The Southern Police District (SPD) launched on Friday its campaign to promote among the district's investigative units the importance of securing latent fingerprints in a crime scene.

Dubbed as "Freddie the Fingerprint" campaign, the launch at the SPD headquarters in Taguig City was graced by Chief Supt. Takahiro Iiri of the Japan National Police Agency and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Iiri, as JICA manager, also serves as an adviser to the Philippine National Police on investigation matters.

Aside from generating awareness on the use of fingerprints as evidence in a crime, investigators of the SPD will also be further trained by the JICA in the gathering and preservation of latent fingerprints gathered from crime scenes.

Iiri lauded the efforts of the SPD in gathering fingerprints from crime scenes and sending them to the PNP Crime Laboratory in Camp Crame for databasing using the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).

According to Iiri, with a total of 1,257 lifted latent prints from January to October 2013 and sent to AFIS, the SPD holds the record among police units in the Philippines.

"You have sthrenghtened crime scene investigations with your latent print collection," Iiri said.

For his part, SPD director, Jose Erwin Villacorte said the SPD is bent on making crime scene investigations scientific, starting with the careful lifting and preservation of fingerprints.

"The SPD is making a difference in this endeavor. The SPD now has the largest number of latent prints collected in the Philippines," he said.

"It is not just the crime laboratory people who should be lifting prints. Every police officer should be doing this as we are all invesigators," he added.

To underscore the importance of carefully lifting prints from the crime scene and also on the need to preserve the integrity of the crime scene, Villacorte yesterday ordered that all police officers of the district always carry with them a pair of white cloth gloves.

"All policemen in Japan carry a pair of white gloves. They carry them as part of their uniform and also to be used when they are at a crime scene. We should also be carrying gloves in our pockets as par of our uniform," he said.