Director General Avelino Razon Jr., Philippine National Police (PNP) head, Sunday said he ordered a probe into the reported plans of the PNP to put a closed circuit television camera in the Senate building in Pasay City.
In an interview with radio dzMM, Razon said he has directed Deputy Director Geary Barias, National Capital Region Police Office chief, to conduct an investigation on the reports that policemen tried to put a CCTV camera in the Senate compound.
“Pinaiimbestigahan ko na yan ke Gen. Barias ng NCRPO (I’ve already ordered Gen. Barias of NCRPO to investigate it`),” Razon said.
In the same breath, the PNP chief denied that they have plans to put CCTV cameras in the Senate building since the establishment has several of surveillance cameras already.
“Bakit naman namin gagawin yun? May CCTV sa labas at kapaligiran ang Senado (Why should we do that [put CCTV cameras]? There are CCTV outside and around the Senate),” Razon stressed.
Razon suspected that there is a deliberate effort by certain groups to discredit the PNP by floating misleading information to the public.
Quoting a source, radio dzMM reporter Jun Lincoran said the plan of the PNP to place a surveillance camera in the Senate was however blocked by Senate Sgt.-At-Arms, retired Gen. Jose Balajadia.
The source also told Lincoran that a policemen recently went to the office of the Balajadia and asked some personnel at the office where they could strategically install the device.
Balajadia, however, objected to the plan and advised the PNP members to ask first the permission of Senate President Manuel Villar Jr.
The Senate’s Blue Ribbon Committee has been probing the scandal-stricken national broadband network (NBN) project with China’s ZTE Corp.
Senior Superintendent Nicanor Bartolome, PNP spokesman, said they will install 30 more CCTV cameras around Metro Manila in the coming days.
He said the cameras will be used for crime prevention and traffic monitoring.
“CCTV monitors are new techniques for crime prevention. In other countries this has been used extensively and getting good results,” said Bartolome.
He said the police plan to put up a total of 56 cameras, 26 of which have already been installed.
The CCTV cameras have been called “spy cams” due to a recent controversy.
A CCTV camera was installed in front of the La Salle Greenhills (LSGH) gate last week where the Senate witness Rodolfo Noel “Jun” Lozada is staying. It was installed by four men covered with handkerchiefs before a Thanksgiving Mass led by former president Corazon Aquino and attended by more than 5,000.
The police had initially denied installing the camera but later admitted it was theirs and was for traffic monitoring purposes.
Another “camera” was discovered outside the St. Scholastica’s College (SSC) Wednesday night.
Members of the religious organizations of LSGH and SSC suspect that the police are monitoring their campuses due to protest actions that were being held in support of Lozada.
Bartolome however clarified the device installed at a lamp post in front of SSC “was not a PNP CCTV camera but rather a photo-sensor device that is used to automatically switch off lights during the daytime.”
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