A MONTH after the President called on authorities to wage a relentless war on criminals and drug personalities, the crime rate in Quezon City, particularly theft and robbery cases, has gone down. However, the number of murder incidents has doubled and this does not include “vigilante killings,” according to the Quezon City Police District (QCPD).
In a recent interview, QCPD chief Senior Supt. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, who was assigned to the post in early July, said that the district had noted a decrease in the number of crimes in the city starting in the last week of June.
Since the end of June, the weekly average of robbery cases has gone down to 20 compared to 34 between December 2015 and June 2016. Similarly, theft cases have also decreased to a weekly average of 47 from 64.
Eleazar attributed the decrease to their stepped-up campaign against drugs, saying that almost all of the suspects caught were under the influence of illegal substances.
Good sign
“Sometimes, they resort to robbery and theft to sustain their vice,” he said, adding: “This is a good sign for us since it shows that our efforts versus drugs also affect other related crimes.”
Robbery and theft cases peaked two years ago when the QCPD recorded 84 and 182 cases, respectively, for the first semester of 2014.
However, for murder cases, Eleazar noted that the weekly average of four cases during the first half of 2016 went up to five cases in the first two weeks of July followed by eight cases each in the last two weeks. The figure, however, does not include the cases of drug-related vigilante killings carried out by still unidentified men.
“We cannot totally eliminate crime and have a zero crime rate for now. Some murder cases could be linked to crimes of passion while qualified theft incidents also cannot be avoided,” he said.
Eleazar, however, stressed that they were also investigating the cases of victims who were apparently tortured before they were killed and their bodies dumped along with cardboard messages accusing them of either being drug users or criminals.
No witnesses
“We are looking into these cases but most of the time, there are no witnesses who could come forward in relation to these killings,” he said.
Based on the Inquirer “Kill List,” 29 victims of vigilante killings have been reported in Quezon City since June 30.
At the same time, Eleazar reported that they have approached more than 4,500 households in the city in line with Oplan KaPak (Katok Pakiusap), a program of the Philippine
National Police which aims to encourage drug users to voluntarily surrender to the authorities.
More surrenderors
As of July 31, the QCPD has listed 5,485 drug users and 456 drug pushers who yielded to the police. The authorities have also arrested 459 persons linked to illegal drugs while 32 others were killed in what the police said were legitimate operations after they reportedly resisted.
One of the latest fatalities in the war against drugs of the QCPD was one of its own, narcotics operative Senior Supt. Ramon Castillo, who was shot dead in an encounter with his colleagues during a buy-bust operation last week. His alleged involvement in illegal drugs resulted in the transfer of 35 members of the District Anti-Illegal Drugs-Special Operations Task Group.