AKASH SAMA­ROO

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Two for­mer act­ing com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice will re­ceive na­tion­al awards in the sphere of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Pub­lic Ser­vice at the Na­tion­al Awards Cer­e­mo­ny at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s, to­day. The Cha­co­nia Medal Sil­ver will be con­ferred to Stephen Williams and James Philbert.

The Cha­co­nia Medal is award­ed for long and mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice to pro­mote na­tion­al wel­fare or strength­en com­mu­ni­ty spir­it in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Philbert, who was act­ing head of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) be­tween 2007 and 2010, said yes­ter­day he was hum­bled by the award and be­lieves it sets an ex­am­ple for those at the helm of the TTPS.

“It says to peo­ple who work in places like the TTPS how they should guard them­selves and their in­tegri­ty, and how they should con­sid­er ser­vice to the pub­lic who is in dire need of it.

“So, for peo­ple who are in of­fice, they should fo­cus on what ser­vice is. From time to time it will be stren­u­ous but you need to avail your­self with the strength, acu­men, courage, en­er­gy and dri­ve to pro­tect and serve with pride,” Philbert ex­plained.

He said he is still in­volved in law en­force­ment but be­hind the scenes.

“I still do com­mu­ni­ty work. I as­sist moth­ers who don’t have mon­ey to buy school books, I coun­sel young men in the dis­trict (Point Fortin),” he said.

While cel­e­brat­ing this as an aus­pi­cious oc­ca­sion for him and his fam­i­ly, Philbert ac­knowl­edged that there may be im­pend­ing crit­i­cism from some mem­bers of the pub­lic. How­ev­er, he said he is no stranger to it af­ter spend­ing 43 years in the TTPS.

“I re­call what some wise man said years ago, he said if you look at the con­duc­tor when he is on the stage, he does not face the crowd at all, his back is to the crowd and he fo­cus­es on the play­ers and di­rects them so that they pro­vide won­der­ful re­sults to the au­di­ence. Turn­ing your back does not mean you do not care about them but rather fo­cus­ing on your job.

“Yes, the crit­i­cisms will come be­cause no­body is per­fect and yes you will get it wrong in the eyes of some peo­ple. I hear peo­ple make re­marks even up un­til to­day and those peo­ple have no idea at all about po­lice work,” Philbert posit­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, through mul­ti­ple chal­lenges, Philbert paid strong at­ten­tion to the de­tec­tion of transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crimes, the man­age­ment of il­le­gal weapons and nar­cotics, hu­man traf­fick­ing and crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Mean­while, Stephen Williams, who led the TTPS in an act­ing ca­pac­i­ty be­tween the years 2012 and 2020, would on­ly tell Guardian Me­dia, “I am not in a po­si­tion to com­ment at this time.”

In a sum­ma­ry of his ac­com­plish­ments pro­vid­ed by the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, Williams was said to have served as Gold Com­man­der and led the multi­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty task force for the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in 2009. It said Williams was first vice pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice in 2016 and is a mem­ber of the In­ter­na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee of the Po­lice Ex­ec­u­tive Pro­gramme at the In­sti­tute of Crim­i­nol­o­gy, Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty.

‘Mo­ment in his­to­ry for the women of T&T’

Mov­ing to the sphere of Cul­ture, Arts and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore will this evening re­ceive the Hum­ming­bird Medal Gold.

This medal is award­ed for loy­al and de­vot­ed ser­vice in any field of hu­man en­deav­our to the coun­try.

She told Guardian Me­dia that this is a vic­to­ry for all women in steel­pan.

“All those women who have been em­brac­ing me and say­ing ‘Ram­sey-Moore, stand strong. ‘You are do­ing a won­der­ful job’. So, I am deeply ho­n­oured and de­light­ed. This is an­oth­er mo­ment in his­to­ry for the women of Trinidad and To­ba­go who have bro­ken ceil­ings and have con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the de­vel­op­ment of the na­tion,” she said.

The 17th pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, and the first woman to ever be elect­ed to the po­si­tion, added that this is a tes­ta­ment to her stel­lar per­for­mance in of­fice.

“This is a big move, know­ing where we were in 2018 when I took over where it was 0 dol­lars and 0 cents and to know my trans­for­ma­tive lead­er­ship would have played a role in steel­pan as­cen­dan­cy to the world and de­clar­ing there is no sea­son to pan and bring­ing ex­ec­u­tive cham­pi­ons on board like the Pres­i­dent, the Prime Min­is­ter and cor­po­rate T&T ral­ly­ing around com­mu­ni­ties, that is a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment. Now we have au­dits, and it is about ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy,” she boast­ed.

The for­mer As­sem­bly­woman for the THA in 1992 in the dis­trict of Black Rock/Whim wants all women to see the ho­n­our as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to stand tall and nev­er be de­terred by at­tacks thrown against them.

Ram­sey-Moore al­so held the port­fo­lios of Sec­re­tary for Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture as well as the As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary for Youth and Sport.

In the field of Busi­ness and Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vice, cur­rent Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Board chair­man and one of Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny’s board of di­rec­tors Eu­stace Nan­cis will re­ceive the Cha­co­nia Medal Gold.

Nan­cis, who served as the 40th may­or of Ari­ma, of­fered some ad­vice to oth­er cit­i­zens.

“I am hum­bled and hon­ored to be giv­en such an award. I have been in busi­ness for 44 years and 24 of those years have al­so been in pub­lic ser­vice. I be­came May­or of Ari­ma in 2003. I do yeo­man ser­vice when I am called. My ad­vice to oth­ers is to stay the course, if you don’t make it to the Olympics, you can make it to the Pres­i­dent’s House,” Nan­cis said.

Nan­cis is al­so the own­er of Ari­ma Door Cen­tre. He has over the years con­tributed to sport­ing events, ath­letes and re­li­gious events.

Al­so be­ing award­ed in this cat­e­go­ry will be Xtra Foods Su­per­mar­ket chair­man Anon Naipaul, who is award­ed for his con­tri­bu­tion to the field of busi­ness.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Naipaul said,”I ac­cept this award with great hu­mil­i­ty and grat­i­tude. I thank God for his benev­o­lence and guid­ance, I thank our cit­i­zens and our lead­ers for this recog­ni­tion.”

He added, This will in­spire and give me the im­pe­tus to do more for our coun­try. I ded­i­cate this to award to all of my dili­gent and car­ing em­ploy­ees and loy­al cus­tomers of Xtra Foods.”