[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’‘DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS’ ICPO to parents: Guard your children ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=’30’ subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY GLENDA SOLOGASTOA
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
Saturday. September 16, 2017
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=’18’ font_color=” color=”]
ILOILO City – Don’t talk to strangers. Stay away from them.
Reports of men trying to abduct schoolchildren promoted the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) to issue safety reminders to parents and children.
Schoolchildren or even high school and college students must not be easily swayed by invitations to board strangers’ cars, stressed the ICPO’s Police Community Relations Office.
The better thing to do is walk away from them, according to the police.
The ICPO also urged parents especially of grade school children to personally fetch them from school, or coordinate with teachers or security guards of the school as to who have been designated to do so.
Central Philippine University (CPU) recently issued an advisory warning its students about kidnappers posing as researchers looking for respondents.
“They would lure students on the pretext that they are conducting a research and will conduct an interview inside their vehicle,” read part of CPU’s advisory.
According to Prim Vergara III, CPU occupational safety and health officer, these strangers usually position themselves outside school premises.
Should students encounter strangers with this modus, they should immediately alert the school’s security officers, stressed Vergara.
The ICPO, meanwhile, said schoolchildren should stay inside the campus while waiting for someone tasked to fetch them.
Those taking jeepneys or taxis must get the plate numbers of the vehicles then pass this inform their parents or guardians, it added.
The ICPO also stressed the importance of honesty between parents and their children.
Children should always inform their parents where they plan to go and when are they coming back home, according to the police.
The Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6) ordered the city and provincial police offices of Iloilo to investigate alleged attempted abductions of schoolchildren.
The reports must be verified, said Chief Superintendent Cesar Hawthorne Binag, regional police director.
“We don’t want to ignore the reports. The targets were allegedly mostly schoolchildren,” he said.
Binag ordered an increase in the number of policemen deployed in the vicinity of schools.
Acting city mayor Jose Espinosa III, meanwhile, urged school administrators to strengthen their security measures.
He is meeting this week– aside from ICPO director Senior Superintendent Henry Biñas – the heads of concerned government agencies regarding the alleged attempted abductions. These include the regional directors of the National Bureau of Investigation, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and Department of Interior and Local Government.
On Wednesday, five men in a blue van allegedly attempted to abduct two grade school sisters in Barangay Bakhawan, Concepcion, Iloilo.
Two days before that, a father reported to the La Paz district police station here that his 15-year-old daughter managed to flee from a man who tried to drag her into a waiting sports utility vehicle./PN
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
