The Philippine National Police (PNP) is planning to buy more body-worn cameras this year in a bid to make all police operations transparent and compliant with the police operational procedures.
PNP chief Gen. Benjamin Acorda, Jr. said they are now conducting planning meetings in order to get the best body-worn camera system available at the market that can be bought at a much lower price.
“With regard to the body-worn cameras, the budget is already included for this year’s procurement. So definitely, we will be adding them to our bucket,” said Acorda.
“So this year, we will increase our existing body-worn cameras. We are planning to buy around 22,000,” he added.
In 2017, Congress allocated P300 million for the procurement of BWCs amid allegations of human rights abuses and extra-judicial killings.
The PNP was able to buy almost 3,000 BWCs from the Congress allocation and saved P45 million from the transaction.
The P45 million saving was combined with the P19 million savings from recent improvement of the PNP Command Center to buy the P60 million worth high-definition CCTV Rapid Deployment System.
It is composed of 10 deployable CCTVs with Artificial Intelligence, video management system, 10 CCTV mobile trailers and 10 generators. Each camera of the CCTV Rapid Deployment System can be loaded with 200 pictures of wanted criminals and terrorists.