Cops and robbers
After one of its nationals was shot dead by two street robbers in Makati City in late February, the government of New Zealand issued a warning to its citizens in the Philippines to “exercise increased caution.”
New Zealand also advised Kiwis visiting the country to be security conscious at all times while avoiding walking and traveling at night, especially in isolated areas.
“No resistance should be given if you are a victim of a robbery, mugging or carjacking as this could lead to an escalation of violence,” it said in its advisory.
The reminder not to fight off robbers, but to give them whatever valuables are being demanded, was not a mere reiteration of what police all over the world advise crime victims who want to live through their experience, harrowing as it may be.
New Zealand’s statement to submit and not to fight scumbags clearly arose from the fact that its citizen, 34-year-old Nicholas Peter, was shot dead when he tried to stop his Filipino girlfriend from being robbed.
One lesson in this is that thugs and criminals would never hesitate to shoot or knife anyone dead if given the slightest reason, like their victims resisting them in any way. Another takeaway is that no property is too valuable to lose one’s life for.
The police would later arrest the man who allegedly shot dead Peter along Filmore Street in Barangay Palanan, a mainly residential district in Makati City that is posing very serious challenges to the police.
That’s a consolation, but not one that’s going to bring back Peter to his loved ones in New Zealand.
Just this week, yet another Daily Tribune employee walking along Emilia Street got robbed at gunpoint by motorcycle villains as he was heading home from his night-shift duty.
He was just one of many residents and workers to fall victim to ever-rising incidents of robberies and snatching (many unreported to the police) in Palanan, a barangay that straddles Pasay and Manila, thereby posing jurisdictional issues.
While Palanan is extremely porous with its crisscrossing streets that allow criminals plenty of getaway options, the Makati City police and its force multipliers, the barangay tanods, should not allow those robbers on motorcycles to laugh at them.
The checkpoints of the Makati City police, like those at Edison and Emilia Streets, have become too predictable to be effective in making the residential area less tempting as a playground for criminals.
Riding-in-tandem robbers simply strike elsewhere, like on Emilia against our worker at the crack of dawn, after the police had packed up their checkpoint there.
Crime is a cat-and-mouse game that the police could win by deploying their desk-bound officers to the streets not just to man checkpoints, but also to increase foot and vehicle patrols.
It can be done. It was done during the time of President Rodrigo Duterte when citizens felt safe walking the streets at night, knowing that the police were prowling street corners, too proud to be beaten in the cops-and-robbers game that had the very lives of citizens at stake.
Maybe it’s a question of leadership, or lack thereof, within the police organization at the moment.
There’s an uneasiness in the air that if high-profile individuals like mayors and governors can be easily gunned down, then what more ordinary folks who are viewed by criminals as easy pickings?
As Senator Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa said a couple of months back, the police seemed to have lost the spunk to strike fear among criminals. Bato, as Duterte’s first PNP chief, should know what he’s talking about.
Enough of those PNP statistics claiming crime incidents are going down. We are seeing things differently on the ground.
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It was done during the time of President Rodrigo Duterte when citizens felt safe walking the streets at night, knowing that the police were prowling street corners. “
Crime is a catand-mouse game that the police could win by deploying their deskbound officers to the streets not just to man checkpoints.