Last Thursday’s visit of FBI agents from the US Embassy was a big eye-opener.
The US Embassy sent two of their guys to speak to some 100 participants from law enforcement agencies and the civilian sector in a one-day seminar on international terrorism and crisis management at the Negros Oriental Convention Center Thursday.
After a whole-day session, a lot of lapses were discovered in the security plans that were being implemented for Negros Oriental and our Province’s security officials vowed to review their plans to include lessons learned from various actual scenarios.
As admitted by the executive director of Task Force Leon Kilat, the umbrella group for all these counter-terrorist groups, “most security personnel here are looking at the usual procedures”. He said many new methods employed by the terrorists are not in the books of many law enforcers.
We’re glad that these vulnerabilities have been exposed before any terrorist problem could unfold here in Negros Oriental. And we do hope that our security forces would immediately put to good use the lessons they learned in that one-day workshop.
In order to keep on top of our game, we must keep on pushing forward. For security officials, this means continually reading up on intelligence reports, and making daily innovations to thwart any possible terror attempt.
Our security forces have to learn how to think like the enemy. Thinking like the enemy may not mean understanding their justification for violence. It simply means that we take preventive measures, target hardening measures, and other deterrent actions. It means reactivating the sleeping Barangay Intelligence Networks, and implementing a Know-Your-Neighbor policy. It means constant monitoring of our vulnerable shorelines, our ports and bus terminals.
The main lesson is to introduce improvements every day. The last thing we want to hear are the “seven last words”: We’ve always done it this way before.