'Dagdag-bawas,' Cebu City police style

CEBU CITY -- Are Cebu City police officials tampering with crime statistics to hide the real peace and order situation and avoid embarrassment?

The city police's operations division reported that there were only 679 crimes in the city in the last quarter of 1999 and only 678 from January to March this year.

However, there are strong indications that these figures do not give the real picture of the peace and order situation in Cebu City.

Some police officials confirmed they are using two sets of blotters, one for the official use of the command and another for their own consumption.

Only those cases which are recorded in the "original" blotter are reported to the Cebu City police office, while most of the unsolved cases are logged in the second blotter which is also called the "investigator's book."

Only during the term of police chief Alejandro Lapinid did the police use only one blotter to avoid confusion.

But even if police stations report the real crime volume statistics, the possibility of having the reports tampered at the PNP operations division is still great.

The Freeman compared crime incidence statistics from the operations division with original figures from the different police stations and found huge discrepancies.

The Cebu City police office has been boasting that most of the 11 police stations in the city are achieving a hundred percent crime solution efficiency even if actual records contradict the boast.

For instance, Cebu City police officials reported to the regional operations division that there were only 17 crimes reported to the Fuente Osmeña police station in January even if records at the police station itself showed there were actually 34 crimes reported.

The city police office also said the Fuente police station only had three crimes reported in February when the actual figure obtained at the station was 22.

Meanwhile, of 53 crimes reported to the station in March, only 17 were reflected in the records of the Cebu City police office.

Regional police director Tiburcio Fusilero, meanwhile, ordered a re-evaluation of beat patrols in an effort to stem an upsurge of snatchings in the city, which remain rampant despite the boast of a hundred percent crime solution efficiency.