Roxas asks PNP to step up anticrime drive

Interior Secretary Mar Roxas

MANILA, Philippines–Interior Secretary Mar Roxas has asked the Philippine National Police to step up its anti-criminality campaign, despite the seeming rise in arrests of wanted criminals in the past two months.

Although the statistics have improved, this is not a reason for the PNP to rest on its laurels, Roxas said.

From June 16 to Aug. 10, an average of 223 criminals have been arrested each week, mostly through served arrest warrants.

“In general, we can say that there is a slight improvement but we are not satisfied. But these are the first fruits and indications of the campaign of the PNP and the National Capital Region Police Office,” Roxas told a press briefing at Camp Crame yesterday.

He attributed the improved statistics to the PNP’s strategy of assigning one team from the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) to focus on one criminal group or incident.

The CIDG now has 15 teams operating in this manner under Task Force Pivot, which is primarily tasked with investigating high-profile or cold cases, as well as criminal syndicates.

Roxas said police operatives managed to focus on certain cases until perpetrators were identified, arrested and charged.

He said the PNP arrested 347 wanted criminals and 439 felons this week.

He said incidences of theft, robbery, homicide and murder went down in the past two weeks, with 757 cases recorded from Aug. 11 to 17, and 692 from Aug. 18 to 25.

The NCRPO also recently launched “Oplan Lambat,” or the regular inspection of motorcycles’ documents to determine if these are stolen or with spurious documents.

Roxas said the program will be replicated in other regions.

The NCRPO also increased its checkpoint teams from 38 to 100, with each team manned by eight policemen. An additional 1,000 policemen have been deployed to Metro Manila to beef up its 18,000-person police force.

“We will improve the strength of the PNP and use crime mapping in identifying crime-prone areas and the times of the day that these are vulnerable, so we can deploy people accordingly,” Roxas said.

Meanwhile, a total of 26,407 houses of licensed gun owners were personally visited from July 16 to Aug. 25 by policemen under Oplan Katok to check on gun owners with expired firearm registrations.