PNP: Filipinos living peacefully; Crime rate down

The Philippine National Police (PNP) has assured that Filipinos continue to live peacefully as it vowed to continue strengthening its campaign against criminality despite President Duterte’s recent remarks on the country’s peace and order.

PNP chief Director General Oscar Albayalde also blamed the government’s detractors in painting a bad image on the current situation of the Philippines.

“We’re living peacefully here in our country and everybody could say that the deaths of [suspected criminals, drug personalities] are all part of law enforcement that contributes to the improvement of our peace and order,” Albayalde said.

“Although there are isolated cases of killings, siguro ‘yan ang nakikita lang nila ‘no and of course there are other sectors sa ating lipunan na hanggang ngayon they are portraying a bad image sa ating bansa (Although there are isolated cases of killings, that’s what the [detractors] are only seeing and of course there are sectors in our society which up until now, are portraying a bad image of our country),” he added.

In a speech last week, President Duterte took notice of the reported spate of criminality highlighted by the death of a pregnant prosecutor of Ombudsman, Mary Joy Ednaco-Tanyag, City.

This triggered a command conference between Duterte and the top security officials to discuss how to solve the problem.

Albayalde, however, continued to deny there was an increase in the number of crime incidents lately.

Relatedly, the Manila Bulletin on Sunday obtained official PNP documents which showed that the national police organization has recorded an 18-percent decline in the number of crime incidents in the country from January to April, 2018, compared to the same period last year.

Based on the Comparative Crime Statistics by the PNP, a total of 149,491 crime incidents were recorded nationwide in the first four months of 2018, an 18.42 percent decrease from the 183,242 cases in the same period in 2017. in Quezon