MANILA — Total crime volume in the country decreased during the first six months of this year, the Philippine National Police (PNP) announced on Monday.
Citing data from the PNP’s Unit Crime Periodic Reports (UCPER), Director General Oscar Albayalde said a total of 227,757 crime incidents were recorded from January to June this year, translating to a 17.39-percent decrease from 275,702 during the same period last year.
This is due to the decrease in the volume of index and non-index crimes, at 33.05 percent and 13.20 percent, respectively.
“Among index crimes, the top three most prevalent crimes are theft, physical injury and robbery. But despite theft and physical injury registering the top two most prevalent crimes nationwide, both crime categories went down by 36.90 percent and 33.80 percent, respectively,” Albayalde told reporters in a press briefing.
Index crimes include murder, homicide and physical injury while examples of non-index crimes include violation of city ordinances and less serious criminal offenses.
“We noted that homicide incidents have been slightly reduced during the first half of 2018 after several months of consistently posting increased incidents among the eight focus crime categories,” Albayalde said.
The focus crime categories, which posted a decline, include murder (29.54 percent); homicide (9.47 percent); physical injury (33.80 percent); rape (24.82 percent); robbery (34.40 percent); theft (36.90 percent); carnapping of motor vehicles (36.30 percent); and carnapping of motorcycles (26.61 percent).
“The significant 17.39 percent drop in crime incidents during the January-June period, and onwards until the end of September, is expected become the trend for the remaining months of the year when petty crimes are traditionally believed to peak in the holiday season. But contrary to this perception of a spike in crime during the “ber” months, we see a steady decline in all crime categories,” Albayalde stressed.
The PNP chief, however, stressed it is likely that violent crimes may spike leading to the election period in January next year. (Christopher Lloyd Caliwan/PNA)
