IPPO launches MotoRonda Squad to boost anti-crime response

By Jennifer P. Rendon

The Iloilo Police Provincial Office has formed its motorcycle team in a bid to boost its anti-criminality response.

Colonel Ronaldo Palomo led the official launching of the Motoronda Squad (Iloilo Motorcops Anti-Crime and Emergency Responders) on Saturday, March 18, at the 2nd Iloilo Provincial Mobile Force Company headquarters at Camp Jalandoni in Barangay Zerrudo, Sara, Iloilo.

Major Rolando Araño, IPPO spokesperson, said the initiative aims to highlight police presence and enhance police response to emergency and crime incidents.

“It will be created in every municipality so that we could respond at the soonest time possible,” he said.

The IPPO cited that police presence has been a time-tested strategy to combat criminality.

“And with a team of Ilonggo motorcops patrolling the stretch of the Fifth District of the province, street crimes could be minimized, if not totally prevented,” Palomo was quoted to have said.

He also expects to lessen crime incidents in Iloilo provinces.

MotoRonda is said to be Palomo’s brainchild that “sprang from his vision of a safer and more peaceful Iloilo.”

NOVEL PROGRAM?

But what’s in a name?

For several years, different police offices and units have created their own motorcycle patrol units.

At the national level, the PNP has created the Tactical Motorcycle Riding Units (TMRUs) and motorcycle-riding secret marshals to thwart criminalities.

Before that, there’s also another TMRU – the Tactical Motorcycle Riders Units (TMRU) – where most members of the newly-formed squads are recruited from the ranks of the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams in the National Capital Region.

Even the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) had also its own Motorcycle Patrol Unit (MPU), which later on evolved and became known as Mobile Patrol Unit (MPU).