Empowering our Force Multipliers: A 1-Day Tanod Training

Hello everyone 👋. I wanted to share with you some of what we do in our community.

As law enforcers, we also impart our knowledge to the community. We do have different sectors that are partnered with us. One of them is what we call the force multipliers, they are whom we tapped first whenever there was an incident in a particular place. Our Barangay Tanods are the first responder whenever an incident occurs in their places. It takes time for the Police or other units to reach a certain barangay in our municipality.

We always make sure that they are fully equipped and knowledgeable in all aspects that may require them or that they will be needing in times in their communities. On this day we conducted a special training for the barangay tanods in partnership with the DILG and Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (MDRRMO) of our municipality.

We started the program with a prayer followed by the singing of the National Anthem. The tanods look snappy as they were excited about this training.

Each of the speakers started to introduce themselves and what are the topics they were going to discuss. They also give ideas to the tanods on what to expect about this training.

The head of the Municipal DILG immediately started the first part of the training. She lectures about the roles and responsibilities of the tanods. Some of these roles and responsibilities are as follows:

📌 They were the first responders in their barangays. They will be the ones that should be alert anytime and ready to answer the call of any alarms, or incidents in their barangay. After receiving a report within the barangay they must call the police station for backup. If they can assess the situation on their own there's no need to call the policeman, but if the situation is unbearable and they can't handle it make sure to call and notify the policemen. They must bear in mind that they must not play a hero in times of danger. They should assess every situation before going to conclusions.

📌 Another role is to maintain the peace and order in their barangays. They have the authority to stop and warn of any misbehaviours in their community.

📌 They will be the ones to send messages and communications that need to be announced within the community.

📌 They also served subpoenas or summons to a respondent in times of trial in their barangay.

The second part of the training was basic life support initiated by the MDRRMO personnel of our municipality. They discussed at the same time showing the actual procedure to the participants. This aims to have them knowledgeable on the first aid and basic emergency procedures that were encountered in daily life.

They show techniques for proper bandaging. This is to stabilize the injured part of our bodies. There were different types of bandaging shown depending on the type of wound or injury and its locations in our body.

The next topic was Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation or CPR. This has to be carefully observed and must not be applied to just any situation. This should be performed by fully trained personnel. This was only discussed and demonstrated to the tanods so that they have an idea of the process of CPR. The MDDRM personnel explained to them that this can only apply also in the special event of an emergency.

I could see the eagerness of these tanods to learn the process.

Choking is an emergency event that may occur anytime and anywhere. We could help someone by knowing how to handle this kind of situation. We should not panic in case of emergency and compose ourselves to help others. They teach them the proper technique on how to help someone, especially the babies. Babies should be handled properly when experiencing choking.

They were also taught the different kinds/ways of carries. In every situation, injury and location there is a special kind of carry to every person.

Some of them are:

💪one-man carry - a carry that requires 1 man to assist or carry an injured person

💪two-man carry - two men carrying and assisting an injured person

💪 Carry with a chair - in this situation, an injured person was sitting in a chair, and this makes the lifting much easier. The responder 2 or 3 person will hold the chair and lift the patient.

💪lovers carry - this was just as same as carrying your loved ones using your two arms, guarding the back part of the patient.

There are a lot of carries but they only focus on the commonly used. The facilitator let them have a demonstration to check if they have learned and can apply it on their own. They actively participated and everyone got the chance to perform different kinds of carries.

The next part of the training is a discussion by one of my colleagues about the arrest, search and seizure. A barangay tanod can perform an arrest in their area without the presence of a police officer. Yes, you heard it right, even any citizen in your area can arrest a criminal who was caught in the act. This was called a citizen's arrest. You can arrest a suspect as long as you have the personal knowledge that they are the real culprit.

This was just a bit dangerous especially if you don't have any knowledge of self-defense. Our tanods on the other hand can surely perform this and can handle the situation. After they arrest a criminal, they can search for any hazardous things within his/her body. There are proper techniques for arrest and how to search the body of a suspect. They have to be more cautious especially if the suspect is not cooperative. After the arrest, they can turn over or call the police for proper disposition of the arrested person.

They will now become a witness or the arresting officer when appropriate charges are filed in court. They will sign an affidavit made by an investigator at the police station.

Another important topic is the handcuffing technique. This is very useful to everyone. My colleague demonstrated the ways how to handcuff a suspect. There are also different positions of handcuffing: 🧎kneeling, 🧍standing and 🛌lying position. While performing the handcuffing, the arresting officer must be firm and attentive in every action of the suspect. They might run or even fight back, so they must secure and be firm in their every move.

They also have to practice their authority and must show to the criminals that they are law enforcers. Criminals should be caught and put in jail.

The last part of the program was the giving of certificates to the participants. Although the topic was compressed into a 1-day training, we are glad that they still have learnings.

After giving the certificates, we asked random participants what they learned from the training. We would like to know the inputs and information that they have gathered today. We are so glad that they were able to express and share with all of us their learnings. This day is not wasted.

We ended the training with a photo op. What a tiring yet fruitful day it is. We are so glad to share our knowledge with our force multipliers who are also our partners that made our job a lot easier.