San Simon, Pampanga—Barangay COVID Defense (BACOD), an initiative of the Central Luzon Philippine National Police in preventing the spread of coronavirus, was established in this farming town as a pilot project to protect the people from the COVID 19 pandemic.
The program, intended as the first line of defense against the coronavirus, was conceptualized by former Central Luzon police director Bgen. Rhodel Sermonia during his short stint in Camp Olivas.
Sermonia is presently the chief of the Police Community Relations Division at the PNP National Headquarters in Camp Crame.
The BACOD concept, police said, will help residents in the community to motivate and organize themselves in promoting awareness on the health protocols and other noble undertakings among residents in a specific area.
Barangay San Juan in this town was the first community in Pampanga where the PNP established a BACOD center.
“BACOD shall be operational with the clustering of barangays that will perform specific functions such as assistance in preventing violation in minimum health standard protocols; provide security and patrol operations; encourage backyard farming; security visibility in coordination with barangay councils; assistance in contact-tracing efforts; promote livelihood programs like urban gardening, and skills development,” said Police Regional Office 3 Director BGen Valeriano De Leon.
Police Lt. Gen. Hawthorne Binag led the inauguration of the first BACOD center in Pampanga where he was joined by local government officials here. He also inaugurated the Safe Exchange Zone, an area where people meet for trade in an online business.
“With our existing Community Mobilization Project where almost all barangays in the region are already mobilized, we are confident that BACOD will help us in flattening the curve of COVID-19 cases while the PNP Safe Exchange Zone guarantees the safety of our consumers and sellers online,” said De Leon.
While the PNP Safe Exchange Zone aims to provide the citizens with a location that will help reduce and deter fraudulent transactions while maintaining privacy during the incident of legal, private sales from an e-commerce website and at the same time establish an Exchange Zone that is safer to do business emanating from the internet transactions working in partnership with a responsive community.