Director General Ronald dela Rosa, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), ordered Tuesday a crackdown against gun-wielding barangay security officers (locally known as barangay tanod) who have been using firearms in the conduct of village patrol.
Dela Rosa’s order was an offshoot of the controversial Mandaluyong City incident wherein the security officers of Barangay Addition Hills are being accused of open firing at the vehicle which they mistook to be the getaway car of the gunmen in a shooting incident that occurred in their community last week.
“First of all, these tanod, they are not authorized to carry guns so right now I am giving instruction to all members of the PNP: Arrest all the armed barangay tanod,” said dela Rosa.
“They cannot invoke that they have the right to carry firearms because they are tanod. That is illegal. What they are lawfully allowed to bear are sticks,” he added.
Initial investigation disclosed that the barangay tanod were duped by a group of men who are allegedly the suspects in an earlier shooting in their barangay that the white car leaving the area are carrying the gunmen.
They allegedly fired at the white car when they chanced upon it along Shaw Boulevard and the responding policemen joined the shooting. At least 36 spent shells of firearms were recovered in the area.
“I don’t care if the mayors, the bosses of the tanod, would get mad. You should arrest them all because that is illegal. They are not authorized to bear firearms,” said dela Rosa. (Aaron Recuenco)