Be afraid, criminals. Be very afraid.
Starting this week, guards armed with the latest state of the art sticks will be dispatched to roam the corridors of SM stores everywhere to check mallgoers' belongings.
The changes were made in response to the Jan 26 robbery in SM Megamall in Mandaluyong, where several men fired shots into the air-conditioned air to provide distraction while they escaped after a jewelry store heist.
"This is to make sure that our loyal patrons are provided with utmost security," SM spokesperson Ian Mathay said in a statement.
"The newest batons are longer, sleeker, made from 100% pure wood, and would enable our personnel to analyze the contents of our visitors' bags much more efficiently than the old models did," Mathay said.
He added that their newest equipment have been imported from the leading security agencies in Somalia.
Up to 30 extra security guards will roam the malls in the updated SM plans, acting like barangay tanods, asking anyone suspicious---which would include goths and hiphop wannabes--- to open their belongings for a quick scan.
To complement this, the management has also approved the purchase of 200 additional CCTV cameras for each mall, which the security staff expects to boost their surveillance and intelligence-gathering capabilities.
"This gives us the ability to observe these criminal elements while they commit crimes inside our premises in real-time," Mathay said.
Netizens, however, have lambasted SM's newest security measures.
"Those magic sticks are useless! Why not use chopsticks?" sekyu214 tweeted.
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