Osmeña challenges police: Improve crime monitoring

CEBU CITY – Mayor Tomas Osmeña challenged the police to improve its monitoring of the crime rate in the city. A report on the crime index per city released by Numbeo, an online database that provides living conditions of cities worldwide, showed that Cebu City is ranked the fifth safest city in the Philippines and the eighth in Southeast Asia, however. Osmeña said he wants the city to rank number 1, not no. 8.

Just this year, Cebu was 3rd in the list of Philippine cities with fewer crimes. But Osmena noted that the crime rate will not determine if a city is safe or not.

According to Numbeo, from last year's 48.79, the city’s crime index is down to 44.28 this year.

But the mayor is far from satisfied. “That’s bad! Because that means people are not reporting and the policemen are not responding. For me, if they are really doing their job, crime rates should go high. It goes high because people gave their reports for them to log. That’s what I’m trying to say,” he said.

Osmeña said he just wanted a truly safe city for all Cebuanos, that is why he suggested that the police improve its monitoring of crimes.

He added that it is very impossible there are no crimes reported because he even received calls late at night from people reporting incidents at their places.

Police regional director Debold Sinas differed with the mayor. “We cannot force the people to report if there are no crimes really happening here,” he said.

Sinas assured the public the police is doing its job well. He said that no matter what crime rate in Cebu is, the goal remains maintaining peace and order of the city.

“Yes, peace and order is not all about statistics but if we ignore that, people will not bother to go and report incidents to the police,” said Osmeña. (With reports from Larnie L. Bacalando/PIT Intern and Bethel Cataquez/ CIT-U Intern)