Makati robbery in broad daylight

An otherwise lazy Sunday was made exciting by a shootout in Greenbelt before noon. I first read about the event through different tweets of users who post updates in twitter as the robbery in broad daylight unfolds.

The Makati robbery took place in Greenbelt 5, a very posh shopping facility, where five armed gunmen said to be dressed as bomb squad broke the glass panel of a Rolex watch outlet to enter the store. They were engaged in exchanges of gunshots by escorts of Taguig City Mayor Freddie Tinga who noticed the irregularity of the incident.

Tinga was having lunch in a nearby restaurant when he heard the gunshot at about 11:50 a.m., unaware that it was his security aides who were exchanging fires with the robbers. The escort said they managed to neutralize one of the robber, but the others were able to escape because police said it was difficult to identify them from the civilians.

This is a big blow to the effectivity of the police visibility, if ever there are any. What with bandits having the guts to pull off the heist in broad daylight simply shows no respect for the authority.

Questions were also raised to the kind of security that the guards in the place are imposing. How did the weapons managed to get inside the mall? I know that guards check everyone who enters the area.

In other reports, the security guards were said to be told to step aside by the armed men when they approached the mall, saying they were responding to an emergency call as there was a “bomb scare” in the area.

While this could be the case, I bet there is an SOP for this type of procedure, a protocol, before anybody with heavy weapons can just proceed to any establishment, and security guards should be aware of that protocol and implement it. Otherwise, bandits can easily do their will, whenever and wherever they want to.