ILOILO City – Western Visayas police chief Brigadier General Rene Pamuspusan reminded his men to enhance patrol operations and be familiarized with their beats to prevent crimes, especially those perpetrated by motorcycle-riding criminals.
“We should enhance our patrolling system. Beat patrollers should perform their responsibilities,” the Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6) director said.
He added that the intensified beat patrolling can minimize the occurrences of criminal acts.
Last week, call center agent Mark Muller, 38, of Jaro district, was shot dead by unidentified assailants onboard a motorcycle in Taft North village, Mandurriao district.
A bystander Christopher Jinon, 30, of Barangay Bularan, Banate, Iloilo was also hit by a stray bullet.
Barely 24 hours after the incident, another person was gunned down by riding-in-tandem suspects in Zone 2, Barangay East Timawa, Molo district.
The victim Robert Isubal, 43, was doing an errand in an oyster house around 3p.m. last Saturday when the riding-in -tandem suspects arrived and peppered him with bullets.
On Aug. 18, Crystal Faith Jastiva, 25, who had just visited her partner in jail, was killed by two unidentified men on a motorcycle outside the Metro Bacolod District Jail – male dormitory along Magsaysay Avenue, Barangay Singcang-Airport in Bacolod City.
According to Pamuspusan, the Philippine National Police in 2018 has launched the “clean rider” campaign to curb crimes perpetrated by motorcycle-riding criminals.
The PNP placed stickers on motorcycles to identify them as “clean riders.”
However, Pamuspusan said the PRO-6 was unable to catch the perpetrators because “they wear helmets” and “they could easily get out of the area and hide their motorcycles.”
The regional director also noted that he noticed some of the beat patrollers were “stationary.”
“Beat patrolling is not new. The focus of the beat patrol is to walk your beat, be familiar with your beat and the people who are there in your beat for you to know who can help you,” he said.
“You will know who lives there and you know the vital installations, and that is how you can control crime from occurring,” he said.
The chief of police will be the one to identify where the beat patrollers will be deployed.
He said crime-prone areas should be “handled” like vital installations, schools, markets, and places of convergence.
The matter on enhanced beat patrolling was raised by the regional director on their recent Regional Peace and Order Council meeting.
“I have instructed them to implement the beat patrol and I can see their feedback,” he said.
Meanwhile, the regional director does not want to speculate that there are “organized groups” behind the killings.
He said he is waiting for the progress of the investigations on the cases by the police directors.
“It’s very dangerous to speculate. We need to study the background of the incidents and we cannot relate immediately one incident from the other,” he said.
Despite the killings perpetrated by motorcycle-riding gunmen, Pamuspusan assured that this city remains peaceful.
“We can say that the general public is safe. I am sure that ordinary people or the peace-loving people of Western Visayas were not victimized,” he said. (With a report from PNA/PN)
