Crimes in Cebu City drop by 8.6% in '08

CEBU - The crime volume in Cebu City has decreased by 8.6 percent in 2008, statistics from the Cebu City Police Office said.

According to the Comparative Crime Statistics for the years 2007 and 2008 released by the CCPO yesterday, the total numbers of crime in the city has went down by almost 200 from 2,746 last year to 2,512 this year or a difference of 8.6 percent.

Index crimes, or crimes against persons and properties, have gone down from 1,829 in 2007 to 1,558 in 2008. These crimes include murder, robbery, physical injuries, theft and rape, among others.

Theft posted the biggest decrease from 909 reported cases last year to only 681 this year. Robbery has also decreased from 298 to 275, physical injury from 507 to 472.

However, the data show that rape cases have double from 15 reported cases in 2007 to 32 in 2008. 

On the other hand, the total number of crimes that were solved has increased from 1,954 to 2,051, which means that crime solution efficiency has increased from 71.2 percent last year to 82 percent this year.

CCPO deputy director for operations Paul Labra II said he is happy that despite the lack of personnel, they were able to perform well but added they still have to work more to further lower the crimes. “We are happy with the result but we will not relax. We will try very hard na mo-minos pa ang crime rate to a minimum level for next year.”

According to him, checkpoints and visibility patrols have helped immensely in the decrease of crime rates in the city. Saturation drives, wherein they focus on the places where crimes are mostly happening, is also a big help for them to implement the laws, he added.

Acting mayor Michael Rama also expressed satisfaction on the performance of the city police and congratulated them for their accomplishments.

“Ma-feel man nato nga mas minos og krimen karong tuiga kon itandi sa miaging tuig. Ang ako lang awhag sa mga polis nga i-sustain nila ang maayong performance sa sunod tuig,” he said.

Rama, who also sits as chairman of the Police Coordinating Advisory Council, said it is expected that the policemen will do their best in promoting peace and order because the city officials have been supporting their needs.

The city government provides P1,000 allowance to each of the close to 1,000 policemen in the city and also provided them with police vehicles, fuel and other benefits.

With the increase in the number of rape cases, Rama said the members of the five pillars of criminal justice system should work hand-in-hand to minimize, if not to totally stop the crime.

He said the attitude of the young women of going out at night might have contributed to the increase that is why barangay officials should do their share.

The city has an existing curfew ordinance that prohibits the youths from loitering outside their houses at past 10 p.m. until at 4 a.m. the following day, but it was not strictly implemented in the barangays.

Labra said most of the reported rape cases were from mountain barangays of the city. With this, he added that they would deploy more police officers there and would be talking with barangay officials so they could help in implementing the laws.

For 2009, Labra said they would be intensifying their programs by assigning more police officers in the streets and do regular checkpoints so that the people would feel safe wherever they go.

He added they are hoping that they would be able to put more policemen in every corner of the city so that criminals would think twice before doing something. —Rene U. Borromeo and AJ de la Torre, CIT MassComm Intern   (THE FREEMAN)