Despite rash of crimes, shooting incidents still lower compared to last year — Purisima

PNP Chief, Director General Alan LM Purisima answers questions from the PDI team during an interview at the Editor’s Lounge, Philippine Daily Inquirer main office in Makati City. EDWIN BACASMAS/INQUIRER

MANILA, Philippines – Even with the spate of crimes recently amid a gun ban, the chief of the Philippine National Police said that shooting incidents were way lower compared to the same period last year.

In an interview with reporters and editors at the Philippine Daily Inquirer office Wednesday night, PNP Chief Director General Alan Purisima said the records of shooting crimes recently were only high-profile that they get noticed by the public.

“If you will look at the records now compared to the same period last year [they’re much lower] but unfortunately [we see now high-profile crimes so they get public attention],” he said.

Purisima said that crime incidents are usually motivated by money, and executed upon the presence of three factors: instrumentation, motive and opportunity.

“With all these present mangyayari, kalimitan ang motive ay pera, instrumentation nila ay firearm, motorcycle, etc. …opportunity kapag yung security or personnel or policeman not performing duties,” he said.

(what usually happens is that the motive is money, the instrumentation includes firearms, motorcycles, etc. …there’s opportunity if a security guard or a policeman is…)

Purisima also said that at checkpoints, security forces can only inspect within “plain view.”

“You may have a firearm tucked in your waist or something that looks like a firearm, but we cannot inspect that,” he said.

In a press conference Thursday, Purisima showed a Social Weather Stations survey conducted in the 4^th quarter of 2012, saying that the PNP earned an all-time high record of plus 50 net satisfaction rating since 1998.

“Based on the result of the said survey, six out of ten Filipinos are satisfied with the Philippine National Police…posting an all-time high record of plus 50 net satisfaction rating since the first survey conducted in 1998 . This net satisfaction rating serves as a new source of energy and motivation for every uniformed personnel to continuously and untiringly face all the challenges in terms of maintaining peace and order in the community,” he said.

“So this shows na itong pong nangyayari ngayon talagang kailangan paigtingin pa po nila yung pagpapatupad yung kanilang tungkulin (what is happening now would require them to step up their work). We will solve crimes na talagang kailangan i-solve (that really need to be solved),” he added.