ILOILO CITY: The effective partnership between the police and community in crime prevention and crime solution largely accounts the steady decrease in index and non-index crimes in western Visayas and especially in Iloilo City.

This was reported by Chief Supt. Agrimero Cruz Jr., a police regional office chief, to Iloilo Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog, chairman of the Regional Peace and Order Council.

The Barangay Peacekeeping Operations (BPO) is one of the major projects of regional police office. A pet project of Cruz, the peacekeeping operation is a new concept of community policing, which seeks to empower all stakeholders in the community to share the responsibility of peacekeeping, order and maintenance.

Its implementing arm is the Barangay Peacekeeping Action Teams (BPATs), chaired by the barangay captain, with his officials and other force multipliers from nongovernment organizations, government organizations and other people’s organizations within the barangay with good moral conduct are mobilized.

The barangay is the first line of defense against internal and external threats and the provincial police office in 2012 manifested its quest to make the region a better place for everyone to live, work, invest and do business in partnership with the community and other stakeholders.

In Iloilo, the BPATs are popularly known as the “Chocolate Boys” in spic and span monochromatic brown uniform in the city.

Cruz said that this initiative is a catch-all crime prevention, antiterrorism, barangay justice and disaster preparedness, search, rescue and evacuation strategy.

To ensure the effectiveness of this project, various meetings and dialogues with the local chief executives and community stakeholders were personally conducted Cruz.

Awareness campaigns through lectures on community-oriented policing system were also conducted before the newly elected punong barangays of Iloilo and Kalibo, Aklan; the municipal mayors of Antique, Aklan and Capiz and the provincial directors and chiefs of police in the region.

This project was on its way towards full implementation with 3,642 or 89.9 percent of the 4,051 barangays in the region having organized and operationalized BPATs. There are 1,782 police personnel who are BPAT supervisors and 38,051 BPAT members in regions.

Iloilo province has 1,721 barangays in 43 towns and 1,683 barangays have organized BPATs with 12,849 members. Antique follows with 18 towns and 590 barangays, in which BPATs were organized in 563 barangays and posting 4,416 members.

Capiz has 17 towns and 473 barangays with 450 barangays organized their own BPATs with 8,973 members. Aklan completed organizing their BPATS in 18 towns including Boracay Island with 327 barangays and 4,880 members.

Negros Occidental has 31 towns and 601 barangays with only 335 barangays with BPATs and 3,929 members. Iloilo City has 180 barangays and 135 barangays were organized with 1,220 BPAT members.

Bacolod City has 61 barangays completely organized with BPATs with 1,126 members; while Guimaras Island with 98 barangays and 88 barangays organized with BPATs with 658 members.

Alongside with the operational accomplishments of the regional police office are its administrative innovations and best practices. Among these are the rehabilitation of Camp Delgado Hospital with an ambulatory surgical clinic; construction of a Learning Center in Aklan PPO; launching of Persons’ with Disabilities (PWDs) desks; re-launching of regional police website; and launching of the BPAT Portal.

Regional police body pioneered the institutionalization of PWD desk and the operation of BPAT Portal in the country.

Concurrent with its goal to win public trust and confidence, the provincial police office also sustained its drive to cleanse its ranks by dealing with the erring members.

With 314 administrative cases, 254 were resolved resulting to the dismissal of 14 police personnel, five demotions, 53 suspended, 28 with forfeited salary, 19 reprimanded and 11 dropped from roll.

The police command is sustaining its operations against illegal drugs and sustained police operations with 385 persons arrested, 227 cases filed in courts and more than P5.5 million worth of illegal drugs were recovered and confiscated.

A total of 809 persons were arrested due to operations against illegal gambling, 345 cases filed and confiscation of P219,478.40-bet money among others. A total of 82 persons were also arrested leading to recovery of lumber with an estimated value of over P2.2 million.

A total of 218 persons were arrested from 928 operations conducted and the filing of 185 cases in court for robbery and hold-ups.