POROUS BORDERS

POROUS BORDERS

Dear Mr. President: During the series of Senate hearings about how dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Gou was able to leave the country, one of the resource persons said that one of the reasons is that we have “porous borders”. I think that there is nothing new with that, because that is a reality that we could not avoid, considering that we are an archipelagic country. However, what could be a cause for concern, is that if that porousness could enable fugitives to get out, it could also enable terrorists and even hostile foreign agents to come in.

Because our borders are naturally porous, there is probably no way to fully prevent the exit of fugitives, and the entry of terrorists. However, it would be realistic to assume that we could do the next best thing and that is to minimize both the exits and the entries. And how could we do that? I do not have a ready design yet, but I believe that we could do that through a mix of manual and digital systems.

If there is a will, there is a way. I believe that no matter how difficult it is, there are always ways to make our borders “less porous”, so to speak. Of course, some investments would have to be made, but what is the price of our national security and our sovereignty. Besides, we may already have the budgets for that allocated in our police and military agencies, and all it takes perhaps is proper planning and execution. As a matter of fact, we may already have the necessary equipment inside our government agencies, and all that is needed is systems integration.

Believe it or not, we may already have an army (or an air force) of drones that are owned by private companies and individual hobbyists, and many of them might be willing to deploy their assets to become our “eyes in the skies” at no cost to the government. We have already seen this noble behavior among the boat and yacht owners who volunteer the use of their assets and join the auxiliary navy or coast guard.

As far as I know, there are so many Information and Communications Technology (ICT) systems that could be used to enhance border monitoring, such as Internet of Things (IOT) sensors, Doppler radars, Sound Navigation and Ranging (SONAR) equipment and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) equipment. Aside from that, there are many official and commercial sources of satellite data, among which is www.planet.com. As a matter of fact, some of these data and equipment may already with our own government agencies, such as NAMRIA, PHIVOLCS and PHILSPACE.

Mr. President, even without newly allocated budgets, I believe that the government could already work with what they have, to start a project that could begin with plain and simple systems integration. I also believe that the DFA could be very instrumental in acquiring equipment from foreign agencies and organizations such as UNDP, UNIDO, NASA, JICA and ICAO. I personally know several scientists from DOST and NAST who would be willing to help with this project, and I am willing to help the government in putting this together if they want me to. IKE SENERES/09-27-2024   

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