Cebu province crime incidents down 70 %

May 8, 2020

Cebu Province Governor Gwendolyn Garcia on Thursday said crime incidents in barangay level up to sub-villages went down by 70 percent.

Garcia said the most vigilance was done by authorities in the barangay level and even down to sub-villages called ‘sitios’ and ‘puroks,’.

“Now we see that it can be done. We have long set up these structures, and we are looking at results of their impact on peace and order,” she said during her virtual presser.

With this development, Garcia congratulated the 1,063 barangays of Cebu Province’s 44 towns and seven component cities which are Talisay, Toledo, Carcar, Naga, Danao, Bogo, and Mandaue.

As of now, barriers are being placed at the sitio level, with logbooks on people who enter their areas where barangays are doing extensive monitoring on new arrivals within their territories, and place them as persons under monitoring.

Speaking in Cebuano, Garcia said the quarantine they implemented helped the province in decreasing its crime rate.

“That’s why I want to thank  all the barangay and village leader of the 1,063 barangays,” Garcia said.

Ronda Municipal Mayor Terence Blanco communicated with Gacria on how a corpse went past checkpoint when the certificate issued by the province is good for one day.

Garcia met with Cebu Provincial Police Chief Col. Roderick Mariano and  Col. Jerry Borja of the Army to prevent another incident.

She also told them of people smuggled recently into Barangay Butong, Pinamungajan by a cook of a military man. They are now considered persons under monitoring in Pinamungajan.

Garcia called on stringent measures to monitor the smuggling  of people into Cebu since they can be possible carriers of the dreaded Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

According to Department of Health- Central Visayas region, they recorded 1,579 cases.

It said the increasing capacity of the region's sub-national laboratory at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) in Cebu City and the large coverage of the contact tracing teams has resulted in the  large number of results, both  positive and negative cases.

“All reported data from subnational laboratories are subject for validation and case review by the Epidemiology Bureau (DOH Central Office),”it added. Ella Dionisio/DMS