Belated crime reports surge after lockdown

MANILA, Philippines — Police officials last month reveled over data suggesting a 61-percent drop in criminality when Luzon was under lockdown, but fresh data now shows that the vaunted drop was only a Potemkin village that hid the crimes committed in private homes under strict quarantine.

Philippine National Police Women and Children Protection Center (WCPC), for instance, initially reported that domestic crimes dropped from 6,689 incidents from Jan. 1 to March 16 to 3,699 incidents from March 17 to June 4, the period when Luzon was under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

But Col. Joy Tomboc, WCPC spokesperson, said new figures emerged as soon as most of Luzon were downgraded to a general community quarantine.

Across the country, Tomboc said, there were 2,246 belated reports of violence against women and 2,172 complaints of child abuse. The incidents happened between March 15 and May 31, the period of the Luzon-wide ECQ.

“We anticipated the decrease in the number of reports during the ECQ because people had physical difficulty reporting. Once the ECQ was lifted, we saw an increase,” she said in an interview aired on dzBB.

“Most of the victims were hesitant to report [abuse they suffered] during the ECQ maybe because of the shame and scandal they thought they would bring to the family,” Tomboc told the Inquirer in a phone interview.