NCRPO chief describes Twitter as ‘wonderful’

It’s fast and simple. Plus information comes to you every second.

This was how National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) head Chief Supt. Marcelo Garbo Jr. described Twitter as he extolled the values of the social networking site, and once again urged district and city police officers to maintain their own accounts.

Speaking at a command conference at Caloocan City Hall last week, Garbo admitted that he, too, was at first unconvinced by the features of the so-called microblogging website.

“At first, I did not see the value of it but when I tried it, it was wonderful,” he said.

“I’d like to market the advantage of Twitter. With it, I can have information in seconds about what’s happening in Metro Manila or elsewhere regarding the weather, news or anything. You can follow or stalk anyone on the site,” he added.

Garbo compared Twitter to news websites to further drive home the point.

“With news websites, the breaking news are updated within the hour. But with Twitter, it updates within seconds. You can actually see what’s going on or who’s talking about [Janet Lim-]Napoles,” he said.

Garbo added that the NCRPO is now heavily promoting its own Twitter handle, @NCRPOReact, in busy places such as toll booths, seaports, train stations and other areas.

“We can consider this as our online blotter,” Garbo said. “The public can go into our Twitter, Facebook [accounts] and our text hotline and use these as a venue for communicating with the police. They can report crimes or give tips which will help solve crimes.”

He added that with Twitter, people need not go to the police station to report crime, removing the physical aspect of the process.

“All of the police officials, the districts and the city police should maintain and update their Twitter accounts regularly,” Garbo said.