The focus of the SGSecure movement will move from
raising public awareness on the possibility of terror attacks in
Singapore to raising preparedness levels among Singaporeans towards
such events.
Reflecting the change in focus, the campaign now sports
a new tagline: "Be Prepared. Our Response Matters". The old tagline
was "Not If, But When. Our Response Matters".
Announcing the new tagline on the sidelines of the
Ministry of Home Affair's Minister's Award Presentation Ceremony on
Wednesday (Sept 27), Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam said the
campaign has achieved some success but more work needs to be done
as "a lot of people are not mentally tuned to preparedness".
He cited how the SGSecure app has been downloaded about
one million times since its launch in September last year with the
aim to sensitise, train and mobilise the community to security
threats.
But he also pointed to the series of attacks this year
in London and Barcelona, and also the recent emergence of extremist
groups in Southeast Asia, particularly in the Philippines' Marawi
region and Myanmar's Rakhine state.
"It is going to attract fighters, extremists and
would-be fighters to go to these places to fight. And once they
come to this region, they are going to try and spread out to other
targets too. It is not a pretty picture, and we're going to keep
pushing on.
"We still have some ways to go, awareness is one thing,
preparedness is another," said the minister, adding how the
government is making a big push this year to raise preparedness at
workplaces and in schools.
At the awards ceremony, more than 400 Home Team
officers - including representatives involved in some of
Singapore's largest and most complex operations - were recognised
for their work in ensuring Singapore's safety and security.
One recipient of the Home Team Achievement Award was
Singapore Police Force's (SPF) Superintendent Alan Wong, 45.
Mr Wong, assistant director of Operations Exercise and
Readiness Division, was part of the team that led an islandwide
counter-terrorism exercise held in October last year. It was the
largest SPF-led, multi-agency exercise ever held in Singapore.
The exercise involved over 3,200 personnel from the
various Home Team agencies and over 50 community volunteers. The
exercise, which aimed to prepare Singapore for possible terror
attacks, was held in two phases on Oct 17 and Oct 18 last year.
The first phase educated the participants on the
necessary deterrence measures. The second phase involved training
officers and volunteers in how to respond should an attack
occur.
The participants role-played various scenarios and were
tested on their response to different attacks. The course trains
participants in responding to the varied forms of attack, including
knives, vehicular attacks, guns and suicide bombers.
Mr Wong said such exercises are crucial to enhancing
operational awareness.
"It is all about muscle memory, it is better to make
mistakes now and learn from them than to be unable to react
properly in the event of an attack," he said.
ST
