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BAGUIO CITY: They are pretty and deadly. The Baguio City Police
Office (BCPO) has formed its all-female Special Weapons and Tactics
(SWAT) team that would respond to emergency calls needing urgent
police assistance in this mountain resort city.
The all-female SWAT team with 17
members—youngest is 25-years old—will be headed by Insp. Gemma
Braganza and they will undergo rigid trainings to prepare them for
any situation where their presence would be needed.
The special BCPO-SWAT team was presented
to city officials led by Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr., who even
boasted to City Hall beat reporters that one policewoman is a
“trained” sniper.
Bautista, in his short talk with the SWAT
team, assured that the city government will try its best to augment
the support being provided by the Philippine National Police to BCPO.
The mayor added that they will try to
request for helicopter so that the all-female SWAT team will also
have aerial training.
Senior Police Officer 4 Viyo Hidalgo, BCPO
spokesman, explained that Baguio, being a highly urbanized city,
needed a special all-female SWAT force due to the dynamics of peace
and order in the city.
Hidalgo said that the all-female SWAT team
will not only be involved in responding to police emergency calls
but also to be deployed in cases where most participants were
females.
It is not the first time that BCPO is
giving special or equal recognition to the capabilities of its
female personnel.
BCPO, which was thrice awarded as the
“Best City Police Office” in the entire country, has its own
police station managed purely by women cops, whose mandate is to
attend to cases involving women and children.
BCPO is also supportive of the all-female
tourist oriented police program of the Cordillera police regional
command headed by C/Supt. Eugene Martin.
The all-female tourist-oriented cops are
deployed to ensure the safety and protection of the public during
fiestas and big gatherings in the region.
-- Harley F. Palangchao
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