CCPO to tap public help through Oplan Pokemon

TO ENCOURAGE the public to provide information for their anti-drugs and anti-criminality operations, the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) will introduce Oplan Pokemon.

Oplan Pokemon, according to City Director Joel Doria, will make it easier for residents to identify operations as it is similar to One-Time-Big-Time (OTBT).

OTBT, according to the National Capital Region Police website, “is part of Oplan Lambat-Sibat where all-out police operations are simultaneously conducted against illegal drug personalities, most wanted persons, loose firearms and all other form of crimes.

“The public didn’t get the concept of Campaign Plan Double Barrel so we’ll come up with Oplan Pokemon,” Doria told reporters in Tagalog.

In the Double Barrel program, two triggers will be set off with one touch of the barrel. There’s a barrel that goes after high-value targets while the other barrel targets street-level personalities.

Waiting for approval

The city director said that like Pokemon Go, the viral location-based reality game developed by Niantic, high-value targets on the station’s drugs watch list can also be portrayed as rare Pokemons.

The concept will retain the categories under the Double Barrel program in terms of the targets and the subjects on the watch list.

“In Pokemon Go, you look for the creatures. Once you spot them, you catch and arrest them,” he said in Tagalog.

However, it will be police who will catch the targets, and not the public, Doria said.

He said he hopes that when headquarters approves the program, the public will be more keen in giving them information about drug suspects or known criminals.

Several citizens have expressed their support for the police’s campaign against illegal drugs.

Recently, a concerned citizen reported the whereabouts of a group that maintained a drug den in Sitio Cabancalan Dos, Barangay Bulacao, which resulted in several arrests.

Residents were grateful to the police because they had long been scared of the group’s members who acted like thugs in their neighborhood.

Doria urged the public to continue giving information to the police in a careful manner, either by texting or by going to the nearest police station.