GENERAL SANTOS CITY (PIA) -- Task Force (TF) Gensan and the General Santos City Police Office (GSCPO) conducted a joint IED simulation exercise Tuesday at the Bulaong City Terminal and the City Public Market.
TF Gensan commander Col. Galileo Goyena said the objective of the activity was to “test the awareness and citizens’ concern on security through vigilantly reporting unattended baggage to any member of the security sector.”
The exercise scenario was a simulated Anti-Personnel Mine (APM) placed secretly inside the passenger terminal building and another APM outside the main entrance as secondary device.
The unattended APMs were found by terminal porters 15-20 minutes later. The first responders immediately called the AFP/PNP Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams comprising the TF Gensan and GSCPO personnel who were then deployed to the area and cordoned off the whole terminal.
“The packages were disrupted by the GSCPO bomb squad with the aid of sophisticated equipment like remote control vehicular robots,” Goyena added.
Parallel with the simulation exercise was a debriefing of security personnel from TF Gensan, GSCPO and other law enforcement agencies involved followed by the conduct of a loud speaker operation on bomb threat awareness both in the city’s public market and terminal.
“Follow up activity yan to inform the public on what to do if ever may nakitang unattended baggage and pag nagkaroon na ng alert sa area,” he clarified.
Meanwhile, Goyena noted that the team satisfactorily achieved the "desired outcome" of the activity since concerned citizens were able to find the dummy packages and reported them to the right authorities for immediate action.
“The joint exercise also tests the response time and observance of protocol to improve the performance of the police and Task Force Gensan personnel,” he added. (PGFruylan/PIA-Gensan)
