The Philippine National Police (PNP) has tallied a total of 1,877 unsolved cases of "heinous" and "sensational" crimes in 2020, an official disclosed to the Senate on Thursday, March 11.
At the continuation of the Senate justice and human rights committee's inquiry into the spate of killings in the Philippines, PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) director Police Major General Albert Ferro said the cases that were recorded from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020 range from murder, rape, kidnapping, serious illegal detention, car theft, parricide, violation of the anti-illegal drug law, robbery, piracy, treason, to arson.
"These are the cold cases that available on hand," Ferro said.
Senator Richard Gordon, the Senate committee's chairman, however, doubted that the figures included all unsolved cases.
"I'm not going to pass judgement na 'yan lang ang kaso (that those are only the number of cold cases). Alam kong marami pero (I know there's more but) we'd like to get that," he said, asking Ferro to submit the report to the panel.
During the hearing, Gordon also lamented the unsolved killings involving policemen, as well as riding-in-tandem shootings.
"There's got to be a very robust effort na mahuli 'yang mga 'yan (to arrest the perpetrators). Hindi lang sasabihin natin na 'under investigation', eh talagang hindi dapat titigilan (That we will just consider them under investigation, we should not stop until we solve them)," he said.
He suggested to the PNP leadership to cite and reward policemen who would be able to successfully solve cases to motivate their peers. PNP deputy chief for administration Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, on the other hand, explained to Gordon that police have also been able to solve several cases.
"We have several cases are solved and are being solved immeditaley, pero sa katotohanan meron din po talagang nade-delay (but we have to admit that some are delayed)," Eleazar admitted.