Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada on Monday tasked the Manila Police District to conduct simulation exercises in commercial establishments such as hotels and casinos in the light of the Resorts World Manila incident that left 36 people dead.
Estrada said these drills will better prepare private security officers, police, and especially the public in the event of armed assaults or “active shooter” scenarios like what has happened at RSW where a lone gunman went on a shooting rampage and set fire on a casino.
“We have learned lessons from the Resorts World incident,” Estrada said. “We will use those lessons to further train our police and other emergency services and the security units of private business establishments to prevent such incidents in the future.”
As ordered by Estrada, MPD has been meeting with the security managers of major establishments in Manila such as hotels and casinos to work out a joint operational and security plan concerning armed assaults, bomb threats, and other emergency situations.
MPD director Chief Supt. Joel Coronel said they have completed bomb threat and bomb response exercises last week and will be staging active shooter exercises next week.
An “active shooter” is an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area; in most cases, active shooters use firearms and there is no pattern or method to their selection of victims, the MPD chief explained.
At least seven hotels in the city, such as Manila Hotel and Diamond Hotel, and casinos operated by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) will take part in the active shooter exercises, according to Coronel.
“We will be having a seminar first, then contingency planning with the establishments’ security officers. After that, we will be conducting the simulation drills, where we will act out different scenarios such as active shooter incident and teach everyone how to properly react or deal with it,” Coronel said.
“Our primary goal here is to save lives. It’s a big help if we’re prepared for any emergency,” he added.
Coronel said active shooter cases are normally unpredictable and evolve quickly and that the public and security officers must be prepared mentally and physically to deal with the situation before the arrival of law enforcers.
“After the Resorts World incident, I’m sure all police stations in Metro Manila are in full alert. We’ve learned lessons from that incident so we should adapt and change,” he pointed out.
Nevertheless, Coronel again assured that the city’s 4,600-strong police have remained in heightened alert and are highly-trained and fully-equipped to protect the city.