More crimes in the region, but…

CEBU, Philippines — The crime volume in Central Visayas for the first five months of this year is higher by 1,091 crimes compared to the same period last year. However, police said this is because there were more police-led operations for the same time period this year compared to last year.

Police Regional Office-7 Director Debold Sinas said in a press briefing yesterday, that the crime volume both for non-index and index crime hiked this year from January to May 21 compared to the same period last year.

An index crime and non-index crime are different. Crimes such as murder, homicide, theft, robbery, physical injuries, car and motorcycle theft, and rape are considered as index crimes. Non-index crimes are defined as violations of special laws such as illegal drugs, vagrancy, and violations against presidential decrees and local ordinances.

Sinas said that based on their latest crime statistics from the Regional Investigation and Detective Management Division, the non-index crimes went up to 19,708 from only 18,617 last year.

However, the index crimes decreased from 5,490 last year, this year they recorded only 4,735.

The same data specified that among the crimes, theft cases decreased the most with 13.8 percent or 2,349 from the total crime volume. However, the theft of motorcycles increased in this period from seven last year to 15 this year.

“Ang index crime mas mubo pero ang non-index crime mas taas, buot ipasabot ani mas daghan police operations ang gibuhat karong panahona compared sa last year,” Sinas said.

Sinas said that what it implies is that the police are working to maintain President Rodrigo Duterte’s main thrust to eliminate crimes through their anti-drug campaign. — BRP (FREEMAN)