BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – Robbery cases, including armed ones on the highways, doubled in the month of July alone compared to the monthly average in the first half of 2022, data from Camp Montelibano showed.
The raw data from the provincial police’ Public Information Office is a compilation of incidents from the territory police stations in 12 cities and 19 towns.
It showed a total of 43 robberies from January to July or a monthly average of six.
July alone, however, had 13 cases or more than double the monthly average in the first half.
July is traditionally the peak of tiempo muerto or the dead season in the sugar industry when work slows down or stops in the cane fields as the sugarcane mature for harvest.
Judesses Catalogo, a police Lieutenant and spokesman of Camp Montelibano, said 13 cases in the first half remain unsolved with four in July.
The data also showed Kabankalan City with the highest number of cases at three while the cities of Bago, Sagay, San Carlos, Silay and Sipalay reported one each.
One case each was also reported in the towns of Ilog, Isabela, Murcia, and Valladolid.
August may not have ended yet, but three cases are already under investigation in Murcia, Ilog, and Cauayan towns.
Catalogo said there are three possible reasons why these cases go unsolved: the victims cannot identify the suspect, the police are waiting for a formal complaint, and the victims chose not to file a case against the culprits.
According to the police spox they used the cases for July as a baseline to create countermeasures against robberies that continue to worsen during the dead season.
“We expect the robbery cases to decrease because of the posts that we have put, we have speeding areas in our boundaries in the different cities and municipalities,” he said.
He also added that they have installed patrols in boundaries of Murcia and the northern area of the province to prevent criminals from crossing the boarders.
NOCPPO will also conduct spot inspections in the housing quarters of sugar plantations and haciendas to identify if there are sugar workers from other provinces who came here to escape from the law, Catalogo had earlier said.
