BAGUIO CITY – The cooperation of both residents and visitors to the stringent law and order rules and regulations that were strictly enforced by the personnel of the Baguio City Police Office (BCPO) during the conduct of the grand streetdancing and grand floral float parades last February 22 and 23, respectively, contributed to the zero crime incident that had been reported.
BCPO City Director Ruel Tagel said that there were no crimes against persons and properties committed at the height of the twin Panagbenga highlights primarily because of the cooperation of the spectators to the law and order rules that were enforced aside from adhering to the constant reminders to be alert at all times by police personnel along the 5-kilometer parade route.
“We attribute the success of our public safety and traffic management to the cooperation of both the residents and visitors to our advisories. We are grateful to our people for their utmost cooperation because we can not achieve our goal of having zero crime incidents without their vigilance, cooperation and discipline,” Tagel stressed.
The BCPO official pointed out that vehicle owners also did their part in helping ease the traffic congestion caused by the closure of major roads around the city to pave the way for the twin parades by abiding by the re-routing scheme that had been put in place that proved to be effective and allowed the smooth flow of vehicles inside and outside the city.
Tagel estimated the crowd that gathered along the parade route during the grand streetdancing parade to be more than 60,000 while the crowd at the height of the grand floral float parade was pegged at more than 100,000.
Panagbenga Executive Committee Chairman and Baguio Country Club (BCC) general manager Anthony de Leon said that the foundation will always defer to the BCPO in terms of crowd estimates during the twin Panagbenga parades to avoid biases in the releasing figures related to the number of people who watched the twin crowd-drawing events.
Around 2,000 police personnel and force multipliers and volunteers were deployed along the major parade routes of the two major flower festival parades to ensure law and order and avoid the occurrence of untoward incidents that might compromise public safety while the activities are underway.
Tagel claimed that 1,200 of the peacekeeping forces were police personnel where 850 were from the various BCPO stations and 350 came from the augmentation forces provided by the Police Regional Office in the Cordillera (PRO-CAR) and the Regional Mobile Force Battalion 15 while the remaining 800 included force multipliers, volunteers, medical team members, communication groups, among others.
He said that any lessons learned during the management of law and order during the two flower festival parades will be used to further improve public safety and traffic management in similar activities that will be conducted in the city in the coming months considering the numerous crowd drawing events being lined up in the Summer Capital by various groups for the summer season. By Dexter A. See
