Peeves: Security Checks in the LRT and Malls
First, I welcome me back to active blogging. Or something like that. Hope this continues.
Second, I welcome me back to my first WordPress blog. About time I got back to this place, and since this is basically a rant, I think it appropriate that I do it here.
I’ve actually wanted to blog about this for a LONG time now.
See, security has been a major issue since at least 9-11. It doesn’t help that you have shows over NatGeo that displays the latest techniques and gadgets terrorists use to slip one past all that security so something can go boom again.
As someone long involved in security matters – it was my task for more than five years, after all, to protect the leaders of more than a dozen student councils – I can appreciate the little inconveniences that come with such measures as waiting in line as people sift through your stuff, or having to go naked because something in you triggered the detectors.
I actually had to go through that last one (although not to the point of being completely naked) when I got home from the IAF in 2003 because my shoes (as we would eventually find out) triggered the metal detectors in Hong Kong’s airport. But it was a fun, if confusing, time for all of us there, and being sure that I wasn’t a terrorist gave me the confidence and patience to go through everything the security personnel did.
Besides, I knew those guys were professionals. They treated me well despite having triggered the alarms, and were not invasive even as they bodysearched me head-to-toe. It was even they who realized that it must be the steel-toed shoes that triggered everything. They were courteous and efficient and I was cooperative and thanked them profusely as well all laughed at the “false positive.”
The same, though, cannot be said of my experiences everyday with L/MRT Security.
Like I said, I have dealt with Security before, the professional kind that oversees everything from national to local-event handling. I respect the guys who do the security checks for Level Up! Live every year because they act professionally, courteously (if firmly) and know what they’re doing. They show you that they know what they’re doing and what they’re going to do to you if you’re a snot-nosed brat about NOT going through the security procedures. I give those guys the same level of respect I give the Presidential Security Group in all the activities I’ve had the honor to be on the same area with those fine men and women. I even took it in stride when one of the PSG gave me a drubbing after breaching their security lines (unintentionally). Haha, I forgot my protocol and their protocol, and I forgot how efficient my systems can be, hahahaha.
Which is why I HATE it when I have to go through the sorry excuse for security checks they do in our L/MRTs, or even the Malls.
First is the baggage check. These so-called security guards would just prod and pull stuff in your opened bag with their stick. I was tempted to ask one time whether they knew how a REAL bomb looked like. Hell, they don’t even insist that you open the OTHER zippers in your bag. Which they should. But then, really, like I said: do they know what a REAL bomb looks like?
Second is the body check. When the PSG body checks you, they do if effectively, efficiently and quickly. And most of all, it is non-invasive. Aside from making it clear to you that you do not carry weapons lethal to the President, you do not feel as if someone felt you up.
Contrast this with the way L/MRT guards bodycheck you. Not only is it ineffective and inefficient – most of the time, they only check your belt area – but they do it in such a way that can, if you pay attention to it, violate your person.
I always say that, in a democracy, you can only inconvenience people if the inconvenience serves a purpose. A good purpose. And since, post-Obama, no democracy worth the appellation should surrender the fundamental rights of a citizen in defense of those rights, then you’d better have a damned good reason why you’re inconveniencing your citizenry.
