Motorcyle cops vs robbers on bikes

Crime-fighting in southern Metro Manila is expected to rev up in the following months with the deployment of additional policemen on motorbikes.

Sixty-nine personnel—and bikes—under the Tactical Motorcycle Riders Unit were deployed throughout the six cities under the Southern Police District (SPD) on Monday: Parañaque with 20, Las Piñas with 15, Taguig with 10, Muntinlupa with nine, Makati with eight and Pasay with seven.

At the skills demonstration of TMRU units at the SPD headquarters in Taguig, SPD director Chief Supt. Jose Erwin Villacorte said the new motorbikes mostly came from local government units.

“The LGUs heard out policemen in their areas and saw there was a need, because criminals could easily get away in heavy traffic or narrow roads where mobile patrol cars would find it difficult to follow,” the police director pointed out.

Deputy district director for operations Senior Supt. Conrado S. Capa noted that many crimes, not only in Metro Manila but also in the entire country, were committed by criminals on motorcycles, some of them riding in tandem.

Capa said that last year, 183 crimes in southern Metro alone were carried out by criminals on motorcycles, leading to around 30 deaths. Of these, 99 were robberies, 12 were carjacking incidents and 52 shooting incidents, he said.