NCRPO assures Navotas residents nothing to fear over presence of two armored vehicles

July 16, 2020

The chief of the National Capital Region Police Office ( NCRPO) on Thursday said the residents of Navotas City have nothing to fear over the deployment of two armored vehicles as this only shows police presence is in the area as the 14-day lockdown started Thursday.

In a radio interview, Police Major General Debold Sinas made this remark when he was asked if the Special Action Force (SAF) vehicles will bring fear to the community.

“It will not. This is for us to show that the SAF are helping. This is to remind the people that the SAF is here to help us remind them to follow the directives of the City Mayor of Navotas,” Sinas said.

Sinas checked police deployment in the area.

He said 172 policemen are in the city and an additional 90 policemen came from their regional mobile force and 105 from district mobile force.

“They were deployed in the boundary of Navotas, Valenzuela, and Malabon while those who were inside were from SAF and JTF (Joint Task Force). The mobile checkpoints you see are from SAF together with Navotas police station. What we have discussed is all the augmentation, when they are roving, they should be accompanied by local (police),” Sinas said.

He said cops deployed are conducting information dissemination to the residents.

“We hope the residents will follow, especially on not going outside. They should stay at home so that they can prevent the spread of COVID-19,” he said.

Mayor Toby Tiangco last Monday announced that the city will be placed under 14-day lockdown as their COVID-19 cases continues to rise and their facilities are now reaching its full capacity.

As of July 15, the city has recorded 1,097 confirmed cases where 645 were active cases, 71 deaths, and 381 have recovered.  Ella Dionisio/DMS