What upsurge?

 The Joint Task Force COVID Shield disputed what it described as misinformation on the alleged upsurge in cases of murder and rape during the community quarantine period.  It declared that, on the contrary, the Philippines has recorded a 47 percent decline in criminal incidents during the six-month quarantine period.

Police Lt. Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, commander of the JTF COVID Shield, said there was a 47 per cent decline in the total number of cases that are categorized by the Philippine National Police (PNP) under eight focus crimes, namely: Murder, Homicide, Physical Injury, Rape, Robbery, Theft and Carnapping of Motorcycles and Cars.

In the past days, Eleazar said they monitored reports on the increase in murder and rape cases during the quarantine period.  He noted this misconception could be attributed to the popular notion that domestic violence would increase since most people are on quarantine.

Eleazar said that the total number of murder cases went down from 3,197 prior to the start of quarantine in mid-March to 2,509 during the six-month quarantine period, or a decrease of 22 percent.

Rape cases, according to Eleazar, went down by 24 percent, or from 4,580 to 3,446.

He disclosed that cases of Homicide also went down by 25 percent, or from 819 to 612 while cases of Physical Injury went down by 38 percent, or from 5,474 to 3,418.

The biggest decline, according to Eleazar, was on what the PNP describes as Crimes Against Property which are Robbery, Theft and Carnapping cases.

He said that despite the economic difficulties brought by the Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic, there was a significant decline in crime against property and that the PNP did not even record any case of looting.

For robbery, Eleazar said there was a decline of 61 percent—or from 4,807 cases from September 15, 2019, to March 16, 2020 to only 1,867. For theft cases, there was a decrease of 60 percent or from 10,553 to only 4,228.

“The big decrease in cases of robbery and theft, along with zero report of looting, refutes speculations that there would be an upsurge on crime against property and looting due to economic difficulties,” said Eleazar.

While carnapping of motorcycles was considered common before, the cases went down by 66%--the biggest decline recorded among the Eight Focus Crimes— during the six-month quarantine period, or from 2,013 to only 693.  Carnapping of vehicles, on the other hand, also went down by 61%, or from 218 to merely 86.

He said a total of 31,661 criminal incidents were recorded from September 15, 2019, to March 16, 2020.   The figure was reduced to only 16,879 from March 17 to September 16 this year—which translates to an average of 92 cases per day during the most recent six-month community quarantine period compared to an average of 172 cases per day during the six-month pre-quarantine period.

“We have been conducting analysis of the crime situation in the past six months in order to identify the best practices and security adjustments that we could replicate in other areas and eventually institutionalized in order to sustain this momentum,” said Eleazar.

Eleazar was also quick to point out that the 47 percent decline was based on the already reduced criminal incidents since July 2016.

“Further reducing the already declined criminal incidents by 47% is a big accomplishment that would benefit the Filipino people. That is why we intend to keep this way by conducting analysis of our strategies in order to institutionalize the best practices in our peace and order strategy,” said Eleazar.

He said the Visayas Region experienced the biggest decline in crime incidents with 50% reduction, or from 8,116 to 4,035. This translates to 22 criminal incidents a day compared to 44 cases during the six-month pre-quarantine period.

For Luzon, he said the average daily crime was reduced from 91 per day to 49 per day, or a reduction of 46%. This is  based on 16,781 cases recorded during the pre-quarantine period compared to only 9,046 during the quarantine period.

Mindanao recorded a 44% decline, or from 6,764 cases to 3,798 cases, or an average of 21 crimes a day compared to the previous average of 37 crimes per day.