General Camilo Pancratius Cascolan, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), has ordered the deployment of more motorcycle-riding policemen especially in crime-prone areas in a bid to counter a possible rise of crimes by motorcycle-riding criminals.
Cascolan said he had already ordered all regional and unit commanders to prioritize the training of their personnel on tactical motorcycle-riding to equip policemen with necessary skills in chasing motorcycle-riding criminals.
“I have directed through a memorandum the increase of police visibility by adding more motorcycle patrols to our existing fleet and initiate refresher training to our mounted tactical responders,” said Cascolan.
“All the 17 police regional offices in coordination with the Highway Patrol Group were instructed to initiate the conduct of training on Tactical Motorcycle-Riding and to organize Motorized Anti-Streetcrime Operating Teams specifically against motorcycle-riding criminal elements,” he added.
On Monday, 90 units of 1,000cc motorcycles were procured to boost the capability of the policemen in high-speed tactical police response to street-crimes especially those perpetrated by motorcycle-riding suspects, according to Cascolan.
Cascolan said all regional commanders and unit commanders were tasked to coordinate with the Highway Patrol Group (HPG) in the conduct of training.
Last week, a total of 43 members of the Special Action Force (SAF) already completed with their training of tactical motorcycle-riding.
The PNP Chief said a total of 178 more policemen from Cordillera Administrative Region Ilocos Region, CARAGA and the SAF are undergoing tactical motorcycle-riding.
Based on the PNP data, a total of 1,324 incidents of street-crimes attributed to 1,958 motorcycle-riding suspects were committed from January 1 until October 16, 2020. The incidents include 424 murder, 24 homicide, 307 physical injury, 32 rape, 306 robbery, 100 carnapping, and 131 theft cases.
“Although 400 of these cases have been solved and 362 other cases were cleared with the arrest of 308 suspects and the death of 21 others, we are pursuing the arrest of 1,629 suspects who remain at-large and presumed to be still actively engaged in criminal activities,” said Cascolan.
Motorcycle-riding criminals have been a security headache of the PNP over the years. Several measures were already implemented and proposed to cripple the capability of the motorcycle-riding criminals but motorcycle-riding gunmen continue with their illegal activities.