“I just don’t like the growing number of unsolved crimes anymore,” De la Cruz told Punto, following the shooting of an officer of the Bureau of Customs at Clark Freeport within this city and the carnapping of a van in Barangay Sto. Rosario last Sunday.
City police chief Senior Supt. Pierre Bucsit was replaced by Senior Supt. Dan Bautista in ceremonies at 2 p.m. here yesterday. Bautista used to be the head of the personnel department of the Central Luzon police based at Camp Olivas in the City of San Fernando, Pampanga.
De la Cruz earlier issued an ultimatum to provincial, city and municipal police chiefs to at least identify within two weeks suspects in “high profile crimes” in their areas or face ouster. He explained that high profile crimes refer to those where the victims are foreigners, media persons or politicians.
So far, only Bucsit has been affected by the ultimatum, he said.
De la Cruz could not immediately cite the latest crime statistics, but figures as of last July indicated an increase of 31.9 percent in total crime volume (TCV) in his region so far this year, as compared to the same period last year.
But he also said that the increasing crime trend is nationwide, not only in Central Luzon.
However, he said that this could also be attributed to the new police guidelines on how to classify a crime as “resolved”.
“In the past, a crime is considered as resolved once the suspects are named. This is not the case anymore. The suspects would have to be in jail before a crime could be classified resolved,” he said.
Pampanga police chief Senior Supt. Gil Lebin Jr. noted that the new guidelines also mandate that even “trivial” crimes be included in official reports, thus contributing to the rise in crimes statistics.
De la Cruz, however, said he suspected that the rise in crime rates could be related to “campaign fund raising for next year’s elections”, as he also noted that the provinces of Nueva Ecija, Bulacan and Bataan remain on top of his list as potential “hot spots”.
Bucsit earlier said that many of the recent killings in his city were perpetrated by members of gun-for-hire syndicates from Nueva Ecija.
CAMPAIGN AGAINST VIOLENCE
Recently, scores of members of Catholic Parish Pastoral Councils (PPC) from all over this city held a march and a rally appealing for vigilance against crimes amid apparent helplessness of law enforcers.
Monsignor Jun Mercado, parish priest of Our Lady of Lourdes in Barangay Lourdes, stressed that the rally was non-political so as “to put emphasis on the genuine concern of local folk on local killings” which also claimed the lives of foreigners.
MURDER CASES
Other victims of recent murders in the city include a lady physician who was shot dead in her car at Marisol subdivision, a nursing student who was stabbed dead in her dormitory in Barangay Salapungan, a couple who were shot dead in Barangay Mining, and a policeman who was fatally shot also in Salapungan, said Councilor Efren de la Cruz of the PPC of Belen Homesite. These cases are apart from other fatal shootings that claimed the lives of tourists.
The killers of Joven Deala, half brother of Black Eyed Peas band celebrity singer Allan Pineda, known as Apl.de.ap, who was also shot dead in Barangay Ninoy Aquino last Feb. 3, have remained unknown.
But Bucsit, the city’s police chief, said that compared to other areas in Central Luzon, the fatal and non-fatal shootings in Angeles is much less.
He said that during a meeting held recently at the regional police headquarters at Camp Olivas, he learned that Angeles ranked third to the lowest in the number of fatal and non-fatal shootings in Central Luzon so far this year.
PAMPANGA
RANKS 3RD
Bucsit said that in terms of shooting incidents in the region, Nueva Ecija ranked number one, followed by Pampanga which is separate from the police unit of Angeles, Bulacan, Tarlac, Bataan, and Zambales.
Angeles ranked next to Zambales, followed by Olongapo City and Aurora province as among those with the lowest incidents of shooting, he also said.
Bucsit admitted that suspects in most of the killings in Angeles have remained unidentified, except for the suspect in the fatal shooting of a Malaysian tourist sometime in March along Fields Avenue tourism district.
The unsolved killings in this city also had tourists as victims, including American national Jerry Melton, 51, who was shot dead two days after he arrived in the country last March. Last January, a German tourist was also shot dead in his rented apartment in Barangay Plaridel I, while in November last year, Australian executive Ivan Royal Brown, 65, of Bentleigh Court, Australia, was also shot dead while driving in Barangay Cutcut here.
Last March, Barangay Pulung Maragul chairman Edilberto Cayanan was shot dead at close range in his own barangay.
Bucsit had blamed members of gun-for-hire syndicates, allegedly based in Nueva Ecija, for some of the killings. “We are finding difficulty in solving the killings because the perpetrators are professional members of gun-for-hire syndicates,” he said, adding that the regional police intelligence office at Camp Olivas has already stepped into to help track down the syndicates.
