The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said that the index crime volume nationwide actually went down by 46.66% since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic rebutting claims by Leftist groups that deaths from the government anti-drug campaign allegedly increased during the pandemic.
DILG Secretary Eduardo M. Año urged the Leftists to stop spreading fake news about this alleged spike in drug war killings that is not supported by any scrap of evidence.
“It has never been a policy of this government and the Philippine National Police to violate human rights, much more extrajudicial killings. We will continue to prosecute anyone even law enforcement who violates those rules, violate human rights of our citizens,” he said.
The DILG Chief questioned the basis and methodology used by Human Rights Watch, the group that claimed the increase in anti-drug killings, when the whole country knows that the PNP has been very busy in COVID response, implementing quarantine regulations and minimum health standards since the beginning of the pandemic.
“The entire PNP was mobilized for COVID response, the crime rate nationwide dropped significantly, our people mostly stayed at home, curfew was implemented, the streets are relatively quiet, and now they will claim that extra-judicial killings increased?” he asked.
Contrary to previous reports that the drug war killings increased since the start of the pandemic, Año said comparative data of 183 days before and after the community quarantine shows the index crime volume dropped from 31,589 between September 15, 2019, to March 16, 2020, to only 16,849 from March 17 to September 15.
Based on the data from the Philippine National Police (PNP), all eight focus crimes all steeply went down during the same period including carnapping of motor car (65.3%), robbery (61.36%), theft (60.04%), carnapping of motor vehicles (60.3%), physical injury (37.35%), homicide (24.78%), rape (24.27%) and murder (21.22%).
Of these figures, theft posted the highest volume at 10,489 while car napping motor vehicles recorded the least incidents at 86.
“These are nothing but baseless and bloated allegations of the leftist groups and their cohorts claiming an increase on extra-judicial killings just to mislead the public and demonize the administration,” he added.
DILG Spokesperson and Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya hailed the Philippine National Police (PNP) for moving several notches up in terms of Peace and Order Index Solution Efficiency from 76.34% to 79.20% in the same period.
Malaya also called for a greater sense of discipline among the Filipinos as there was a notable increase in non-index crimes particularly on violation of special laws from 91,928 to 100,876 (9.64%).
“Nakikiusap po tayo sa ating mga kababayan na makiisa sa gobyerno at sumunod sa minimum health standards. Kaya dumadami ang kaso ng mga non-index crimes kasi karamihan nito ay mga matitigas ang ulo na hindi sumusunod sa minimum health standards kagaya nalang ng pagsuot ng face mask at face shield kapag lumalabas ng bahay, paglabag sa liquor ban at paglabas kahit na may curfew,” Malaya said.
“Ang laban sa COVID-19 ay laban nating lahat. Kayo mismo, bawat isa ay may magagawa para tuluyan nating msugpo ang COVID-19 virus na ito,” he added.
Malaya likewise urged the netizens to first check the sources and facts before they click, like, and share on the information that they come across on various online mass media entities as well as social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.
“Sa pamamamagitan ng mapanuring pag-iisip, mapipigilan natin ang pagkalat ng fake news lalong lalo na kung ito ay puro negatibo at paninira lamang,” Malaya said.