Quarantine cuts daily average of eight focus crimes

August 14, 2020

The daily average of eight focus crimes in the country has been reduced from 168 to 86 during the 150 days of community quarantine implementation, according to the Joint Task Force COVID Shield on Friday.

Police Lt General .Guillermo Eleazar, JTF commander, said the nationwide daily crime average for the eight focus crime was reduced to almost 50 percent compared to the 150-day period before the implementation of the community quarantine.

The eight focus crimes are murder, homicide, physical injury, rape, robbery, theft, carnapping of motorcycles and carnapping of motor vehicles.

Data showed a total of 25,200 criminal activities were recorded from October 19 to March 16 compared to 12,847 from March 17 to August 13, or a reduction from 168 daily to 86 daily, or a significant decrease of 49 percent.

Eleazar said the Visayas region showed the most reduction of crime at 52 percent, or from 6,447 to 3,115 followed by Luzon with 49 percent reduction, or from 13,410 to 6,778; and Mindanao with 44 percent reduction, or from 5,313 to 2,954.

He said carnapping of motor vehicles and carnapping of motorcycles registered the biggest decline at 71 percent or from 182 cases to 53 cases; and 69 percent or from 1,615 cases to 498, respectively.

Robbery cases also dropped from 3,874 cases to 1,431 cases or 63 percent decline while theft cases were reduced from 8,334 to 3,177, or 62 percent reduction.

Cases of physical injury saw a 38 percent decline, or from 4,357 to 2,690 while there was a reduction of 28 percent on rape cases, or from 3,584 cases down to 2,572.

For homicide, there was a 28 percent reduction, from 663 to 477, while murder cases dropped by 25 percent, or from 2,591 to 1,949.

Eleazar attributed this significant drop to the intensified visibility of policemen on checkpoints and in the community amid enforcement of the quarantine rules.

He added that strict implementation of curfew through ordinances of the Local Government Units (LGU) was also a big help.

“Our chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), Police General Archie Francisco Gamboa also made sure that our regular law enforcement functions will not be sacrificed even if a number of police personnel were deployed to perform duties related to the prevention of the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19),” he said.

He said the continuous focus on crime prevention is shown through  operations against illegal drug personalities and wanted persons, dismantling of criminal syndicates and the daily call for police assistance to combat all forms of criminality.

“We are also actively monitoring the activities in every community with the help of our force multipliers down to the barangay level,” he added. Ella Dionisio/DMS