NE top cop ‘window-dressing’ crime figures?

CABANATUAN CITY – Is the provincial director of the Philippine National Police in Nueva Ecija “window-dressing” crime statistics in the province?

This surfaced after a top-ranking official of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines in the province advised Senior Superintendent Napoleon Taas, OIC provincial director, to correct flawed reports indicating that a case is solved by the mere positive identification of the perpetrators or suspects in criminal cases, particularly murders.

San Antonio Mayor Arvin Salonga, president of the provincial chapter of the LMP, told The STAR that Taas should not label crimes where the suspects have been merely identified as “solved crimes” since the PNP still has to prove that the suspects are guilty after due hearing in court.

“I think it is wrong for the provincial director to assume that a case has been solved just because the perpetrator of a particular crime has been identified or that a case against him has been filed in court. At best, this is mere identification and even if the case has been filed in court, his guilt will have to be established first because a person is presumed innocent until proven otherwise,” Salonga said.

He said that this is tantamount to window-dressing or tampering of official crime statistics to make it appear the police’s track record in crime-busting is impressive. 

Salonga, however, stopped short of saying the suspects in Lopez’s killing were fall-guys given the haste with which the police claimed to have solved the crime.

Taas had claimed they solved the Lopez killing in just 48 hours even as the suspects remain at large, with a task force formed to run after them. 

Salonga said the PNP would be creating a wrong perception if it reports crimes as having been solved when the perpetrators are yet to be caught and arrested and brought before the bars of justice to prove their guilt.

Salonga was reacting to the claim of Taas that the Nueva Ecija PNP had already solved the killing last week of former provincial board member Rodolfo Lopez following the identification and filing in court of charges against the suspects.

Taas said that they considered the case solved following the identification of the gunmen in the killing of Lopez who was about to board a white Nissan van with his wife and son after attending an evening Mass last Saturday when three gunmen appeared and fired from close range.