MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Police (PNP) has recorded 1,877 “cold” or unsolved cases involving heinous and sensational crimes in 2020, a police official said during a Senate hearing on Thursday.
During the hearing of the Senate justice committee into the spate of killings in the country, panel head Senator Richard Gordon asked the PNP on the number of cold cases it currently has.
In response, Police Maj. Gen. Albert Ignatius Ferro, director of the Criminal Investigation Group (CIDG), said the PNP has recorded a total of 1,877 unsolved heinous and sensational crime cases last year.
These crimes include cases of murder, rape, kidnapping, serious illegal detention, car theft, parricide, violation of anti-drug law, robbery, qualified piracy, qualified, arson, among others.
“These are the cold cases available on hand,” Ferro told the committee.
Initially, the PNP was not able to immediately provide the Senate panel with its data on unsolved cases, which prompted Gordon to point out to authorities that such figures should be “taken to bed” with them.
“That should be something that you should think about every night that there are so many cases that are unsolved,” he said.
“That should be your personal goal to open up these cases and to provide justice to everyone. Don’t you think so?” he asked.
Ferro agreed with Gordon.
“Well, I hope you do that because it is your high sense of duty that must prevail. Not yung ‘Wala akong magagawa, tapos na yan. Finished. Next attraction. Next killing.’ ‘Di pwedeng ganon,” the senator said.
(Well I hope you do that because it is your high sense of duty that must prevail. It should not be ‘I can’t do anything about it now, it’s been said and done. Finished. Next attraction. Next killing. This should not be the case.)
Gordon also asked the PNP to furnish the committee with a copy of the said data so his panel can evaluate it.