by Oliver Baccay

Tuguegarao City (4 March) -- The Philippine National Police (PNP) Regional Command 2 has reported an increase in total crime volume in the first quarter of this year.

In the report of PC/Supt. Roberto M. Damian, Regional Director, a total of 431 crime incidents were recorded from January 1 to February 15, 2010, higher by 73 incidents or 20.39% as compared to 358 incidents of the same period last year.

He revealed that physical injury has the highest number of incidents with 91, followed by murder-25, then robbery-23, followed by theft-11, homicide-10, carnapping-9, rape-4 and cattle rustling-3.

In the report, it also showed that the average monthly crime rates for the period was 10.19 which is higher by 1.7 or 20.20% as compared to the 8.49 last year. For the crime solution efficiency, of the 430 crime incidents, 121 cases were solved reflecting 28.14%, lower by 17.39% as compared to 45.53% last year.

PC/Supt. Roberto M. Damian said the reported increase in crime volume for the first quarter of the year is not so much alarming considering that the cases happened are isolated.

Damian cited the case of Batanes wherein last year, there were no cases reported but this year there is one case reported which gives 100% increase in their total crime rate. The situation added high percentage in the total regional crime rate. He further explained that the crime solution efficiency went down due to the new requirement that they have to arrest suspects and not just mere filing cases against identified suspects.

Meantime, Damian reported the recovery of 103 kilograms of marijuana bricks at Sta. Maria, Isabela and the arrest of a top most wanted person in the region for rape, frustrated homicide and estafa as their significant accomplishment.