Solving Caloocan shootings a ‘big challenge’

Senior Supt. Restituto Arcangel, Caloocan’s newly appointed police chief, admitted on Tuesday that solving the shooting incidents in the city remained a “big challenge” due to the lack of police personnel.

At the moment, the city with a population of 1.7 million has just 1,200 policemen—roughly a ratio of 1:1,400, he said.

“That’s a huge difference from our ideal standard of 1:500. Ideally Caloocan City should have at least 5,000 men,” he added.

Predecessor fired

Arcangel became the city’s police chief after Senior Supt. Jemar Modequillo was fired over 111 shootings that were reported in the city dating back to September. Of the total, only less than half were considered solved or cleared.

But despite the lack of personnel, Arcangel was determined to do his best, starting with the deployment of 300 additional men to the northern part of the city where a lot of the shootings occurred.

He also plans to create at least five more police community precincts on top of the existing seven.

There are no clear plans yet on where they will be built but if approved, Arcangel expects some to rise in the districts of Bagong Barrio, Camarin and Bagong Silang which are known to be problem areas.