People now feel safer with the lower crime rate and improved police crime busting efficiency, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Eduardo Año stressed Monday, night Oct. 25.
In a briefing with the President, Año said that the crime rate is down by 34 percent nationwide.
The biggest reduction was on the index crimes with 70 percent decrease.
Index crimes, based on the Philippine National Police description, are murder, homicide, robbery, theft, physical injuries, rape and carnapping of motor vehicles. These crimes serve as a common indicator of the nation's crime experience because of their seriousness and frequency of occurrence.
In a detailed report, Año noted that the index crimes in 2016 was at 139,111 decreasing to 41,260 in 2020 and 27,523 from Jan. to Sept. 2021.
Citing the improved national crime situation under the Duterte administration, Año said crime volume was at a decreasing trend from 584,883 in 2016, 383,189 in 2020 and 282,631 in the eight month period of 2021.
With the government’s internal cleansing efforts, Año emphasized that every complaint against rogue uniformed personnel were thoroughly investigated leading to appropriate sanctions and even dismissal from the service.
From July 2016 to Sept. 2021, the National Police Commission (Napolcom) rendered summary decisions to 4,947 police officers.
A total of 5,178 police officers, 16 fire personnel and 50 jail workers were dismissed from the service due to various infractions.
The DILG chief also disclosed that 84 policemen found positive for illegal drugs were dismissed from the service while 28 cops were arrested on illegal drug charges.
From 2916 to 2021, 307,521 drug personalities were arrested with 13,244 identified as high value targets (HVT) in 213,504 illegal drug operations where P64.09 billion worth of illegal drugs were seized excluding the P10 billion worth of illegal drug confiscated by anti-narcotics in the last two months.
The intensified campaign of the Inter Agency Committee on Anti Illegal Drugs (ICAD) led to 22,858 barangays being declared drug cleared with 22 Regional Drug Abuse Treatment and Rehabilitation being created under the Department of Health (DOH) supervision.
Año revealed that under the Philippine National Police (PNP) program 50 percent of the 1.2 million arrested drug dependents who were treated in the facility graduated from the project. (Chito A. Chavez)