Robbery on the rise
The series of robbery and hold up incidents in the city has prompted the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) to intensify its saturation drives as well as mobile checkpoints especially at night.
City Councilor Erwin Plagata, chair of the committee on police matters of the Sangguniang Panlungsod, met with ICPO director Senior Supt. Wesley Barayuga over the weekend to discuss measures on how to address the rising robbery and hold up cases in the city.
Plagata noted that the increase in robbery and hold up cases could be attributed to the onset of the lean months. The months of July, August and September are naturally rainy months and are considered lean months because it is during this period that people experience scarcity of money.
Last week several robbery and hold up cases occurred both in the city and province of Iloilo.
Three separate hold up incidents occurred in the municipalities of Leganes, Lambunao, and Dingle victimizing collectors of a lending institution.
Gov. Niel Tupas, Sr. thus called a meeting of all the municipal mayors over the weekend to also tackle the spate of robbery and hold up incidents.
In the meeting, Senior Supt. Melvin Mongcal, Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO) director, vowed to intensify police visibility and checkpoints along the national highways to discourage the bad elements from pursuing their plans.
Tupas also plans to have coordination with the ICPO as other suspects could be hiding in the city.
Barayuga earlier sought the help of the barangay tanods in the campaign against robbery and hold up incidents.
He called on the barangay tanods to help the police in the conduct of patrol operations in their barangays.
He also asked community cooperation as he admitted that the police "could not do this alone."
Barayuga added, the mobile checkpoints that his men will be setting up could deter criminalities especially at night.
He said they will be giving special attention to motorcycles which have questionable papers and which do not have plates.
It can be noted that a lot of hold up incidents happen in the city where the suspects ride on motorcycles.
Recently, the ICPO has also re-implemented the "log in, log out" scheme among taxi drivers going out of the city proper following the occurrence of hold up incidents victimizing taxi drivers.
Under the scheme taxi units are requested to pass by the nearest police station to log in before going out of the city to transport their passenger and to log out with the same police station upon their return.
The city was disturbed by a hold up incident last Friday involving a Korean national who was killed by the suspects after he tried to fight back.
The three unidentified suspects drank two bottles of beer at the bar owned by the Korean at Quintin Salas, Jaro before staging the hold up. Police are still looking for the perpetrators.