Quarantine violators going down: Eleazar

June 5, 2020

The commander of the Joint Task Force COVID Shield on Friday said they  see a downtrend in the number of quarantine violators.

During the Laging Handa virtual press briefing, Police Lt. General Guillermo Eleazar said from thousands of violators, they only recorded 730 on Thursday.

“Since we started, 80 days ago, we have recorded 191,000 violators but it is already decreasing,” Eleazar said.

Eleazar said of the 191,000 total violators, 108,000 were warned while eight percent underwent inquest.

As to the crime rate in the country, Eleazar said it decreased by 58 percent since the start of quarantine period on March 17.

“We saw 58 percent decrease in the whole Philippines in the past 80 days compared to last year… the crime decreased by 63 percent in Luzon, 55 percent in Visayas and 61 percent in Mindanao,” he said.

The decrease in crime rate despite shifting to general community quarantine (GCQ) and modified GCQ from enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) is due to the interventions they implemented, according to Eleazar.

“These are the quarantine control points, police visibility, at the same time, curfew played an important role to maintain order and for the crimes to continuously decrease,” he said.

Eleazar reiterated his appeal for public’s cooperation during the pandemic crisis.

“We encourage everyone to work together to prevent the new wave and we can go on transition to the new normal,” he said.

“We ask for your continuous cooperation… we need implementation by cooperation coming from the public,” he added. Ella Dionisio/DMS