The killing of 10 bank employees in Cabuyao, Laguna last week could be treated with great caution next time bank companies hire the services of security guards or any of its employees. As standard operating procedures, the bank management concerned should properly screen its applicants or people who may recruited to provide services to the bank.
As a common practice, banks usually avail the services of security agencies to provide them with reliable security guards who may be stationed inside to protect the bank from robbers and other criminal intentions that could harm the smooth banking operations. Now, the pschological screenings may have come from the agencies concerned. The way I understand it, most security guards in the Philippines are former soldiers or policemen who were hired because they are already trained in police and military security. But this is not always the case. Other applicants were considered because they either looked physically fit or known to the owners of the security agency.
Usually, security agencies are owned by police and military officials after they retired from the public service. To give a good return on their retirement fees, they set up these agencies to give them a stable income even if they are already out of service. And some of these retired officials who now own security agencies have to hire people they knew in the service. But not all security guards are in their good selves anymore since some of them were deployed at the height of the civil war in Mindanao. Unfortunately, some of them have contracted "war shocks" when they got out of the service. Jobless and idle, the only recourse they knew is to get employment as security guards. That’s when the real problem starts. Because employing people with unstable mind is dangerous, especially if they are working in banks.
Perhaps, what the Philippine National Police, which issued the guard cards, is to re-screen again the active security guards to determine if they are still in their right minds or not anymore. In this way, the police can avoid having to deal with these kind of gruesome killings. I am not saying right away that the suspects in the Cabuyao bank murders are tied to this heinous crime. However, it may serve as a wake-up call for authorities to review their guidelines on security guard recruitment for banks and other financial institutions. As everyone knows, money invite sinister minds to take advantage of a given situation. This happened several times in the past when security guards were found to have been involved in robberies because they knew the ins and outs of the bank they are working for.
Proper background investigation on the security guards’ personality is a must now that billions are lost to bank robbers, knowing that some of them are in a way involved directly or indirectly. It is the only way to curb the spate of killings related to bank robberies.
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