CABANATUAN CITY – For want of travel or income earning, many tricycle and motorcycle drivers seemed out to defy the more than 170 teams of police operatives fielded in this whole province fielded under “Operation Sita” and “Operation Checkpoint”.
In the last four days alone, close to 2,000 drivers were issued traffic citation tickets (TCT) and 96 tricycle impounded.
Those numbers brought to 4,900 the drivers given TCT and 840 tricycles and motorcycles impounded on the compound of the PNP provincial headquarters here, according to daily updates by the Nueva Ecija police office.
Also, on Monday, five suspected members of a “Salisi Gang” from Metro Manila and Cavite were collared in Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija after stealing from a parked vehicle in Talavera town P150,000 cash money, five cell phones and other personal belongings of a lady medical doctor. Aside from the stolen items, found in the possession of the suspects who were stopped at a checkpoint were a hand grenade, 11 sachets of what appeared to be shabu.
Among the suspects was a woman.They were believed to be proceeding to Aurora province along the highway some 44 kilometers away from the crime scene.
The province-wide relentless checking of tricycles, motorcycles and some other motor vehicles started last January 26.
“It was launched as an anti- crime operation to achieve zero crime rate in the province,” according to Senior Supt. Eliseo Tanding, police director of Nueva Ecija.“It is in conjunction with the impact project on anti-crime campaign and enhanced managing police operations launched by the regional police command in Region III,” he added.
He said his operatives from the provincial mobile force company here augmented the regional mobile force battalion. The teams were scattered in strategic places and in areas which were noted to be passageways of motorcycle-riding suspects in various crimes.
Of late, two high profile murders involving motorcycle- riding suspects, occurred in two places in Nueva Ecija. They were the killing of retired priest Fr. Marcelito Paez, 72, who was killed in Jaen town last December 4, and that of Mary Anne Hernandez, 38, executive secretary of Gov. Czarina Umali in Talavera, Nueva Ecija last January 14.
In Sta. Rosa town, live-in partners Crisente Ablan Jr., 50, and Ofelia Mangulabnan, 44, residents of Tabuating, San Leonardo town, were shot and killed in broad daylight by a motorcycle-riding suspect along the highway fronting a public elementary school.
These incidents remained unsolved. The relentless checking of tricycles and motorcycles appeared to be the police response to prevent such crimes perpetrated by motorcycle-riding suspects.
Tanding said the impounded vehicles and the withheld licenses of erring drivers were being released after presentation of their respective proper documentations.
