Full alert on Sunday, day before SONA

Miami
July 25, 2008
Story 2: Full alert on Sunday, day before SONA

The Philippine National Police is will be in full alert come Sunday, July 27, 2008 day before the State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at the House of Representatives.

Dir. Silverio Alarcio, Director for operations said that at around 8:00 am of July 27 they will be on full alert already in Metro Manila, Region 3, and region-4A.

He confirmed that 6,250 policemen will be deployed all over Metro Manila, 3,000 of which will be from National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO).

On the allegations that there are sparrow unit in Manila for the coming SONA, Alarcio said so far they do not receive any threat yet and said, “Everytime that there is an event here in Manila, there were reports coming out about them but there were no threats and I do not think they will go here.”

On the other regions, it will be only heightened alert.

On the coming SONA, Alarcio said they will deploy teams to document their operations. “On the actual implementation, we organized eight teams, these are investigators that will document the conduct of CDM (Civil Disturbance Management), their confrontation with the rallyists, the moves of the commanders. SO that we can see if what they are doing is right or wrong.”

On each team there will be two video cameras that would document everything that will happen. The team will be deployed on where there are rallies.