Yet another unpopular hero in the Philippines the Barangay Tanods. These are the men and women who maintains the peace and order in each barangay, ensuring safety of its own inhabitants and deputized by the local chairman. Mostly a group composed of 2-4 persons patrolling every night in every local street neighborhood preventing crimes or apprehending thief’s, burglar’s, or routine checks. The Barangay Tanod history goes way back from the Marcos regime in the middle part of the 70’s to establish peace, order and security of every individual street in the local neighborhood of appointed and volunteer citizens, an experimental idea which became a success.

At present, the Barangay Tanod became part of the local crime fighting unit of the Philippine National Police, with the support of each Local Government Units (LGU) . They have been authorized to use force at times if necessary and can conduct investigation on their own jurisdictions. They were all granted allowances that includes training by the LGU. These and all were due to the efficiency and effectiveness of action plans promulgated by each local barangay, a positive reaction from all local dwellers around the country that public safety is well taken cared of and crime rate statistics drops incredibly.

The trainings were provided by Department of Interior and Local Government through its Local Government Academy as a series of workshops, which is part of of its genuine long term development programs on public safety in the different communities nationwide. With its success saw the establishment also of the Barangay Peace and Order Committees. There is also a program that utilizes the media as a medium of instructions for all barangay tanods and it facilitates live coverage for developmental tools and are supplemented by workbooks for public safety. This aims to increase every prospective volunteer’s as well as an already appointed personnel’s knowledge of crime prevention and performing tasks and responsibilities as public safety officers.

Indeed, a very nice program from the Local Government utilizing its neighborhood citizens to ensure public safety awareness while we promote tourism in the country. The program is really effective as I once was a tanod in my own neighborhood during my teenage age years and due to the establishment of the program our street neighborhood’s crime rate dropped intensively.