MANILA, Philippines - The fingerprints of former President and now Pampanga lawmaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo joined the records of thousands of criminals collected by the Philippine National Police (PNP) nationwide.
National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) chief Director Alan Purisima said once Arroyo commits an offense, her latent prints lifted at the crime scene would be compared with her 10 prints collected when her mugshot was taken recently in her hospital bed at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City.
The PNP is now in the process of storing 10 prints of arrested criminals to help them solve cases committed by them in the future.
“Once we collect latent prints at the crime scene, we would match it with the fingerprints we collected,” Purisima said.
He said that if two prints match, it would mean the same person had committed the crime.
“So if the former president, GMA (Arroyo) commits a crime and we collected her latent prints at the crime scene, it would be easy for us to solve the incident,” he explained.
Arroyo was arrested by the Pasay City court on charges of electoral sabotage, a non-bailable offense.
The court allowed hospital arrest and ordered the transfer of the Pampanga lawmaker from St. Luke’s to the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City.
The PNP Crime Laboratory in Camp Crame has adopted the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).
With the help of the National Police Agency of Japan and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), PNP investigators have been trained by the Japanese experts in the scientific-based investigation in the field and the collection of the fingerprints from criminals and suspects.
“We have solved a big number of cases by cross-matching the latent prints of criminals and those stored in our database in Camp Crame. But we have no available figures as yet,” Purisima said.
Purisima noted that as of November 2011, the NCRPO has collected 1,272 latent fingerprints or 48.2 percent of the nationwide data.
Last year‘s record for the same period was at 509 fingerprints or 23.7 percent nationwide.
This year’s record, however, showed an increase of 763 latent fingerprints lifted by police forensic investigators from crime scenes.
On criminal fingerprint records, the NCRPO has recorded 11,460 or a percentage of 33.4 percent of the nationwide data as of October 2011. Last year‘s record was pegged at 4,793 or a percentage of 23.6 percent of the nationwide data.
The NCRPO collected at least 6,667 more fingerprint records of suspects arrested due to various crimes committed, Purisima said.
He said the increase of the 10 prints records was due to the intensification of the law enforcement operations, anti-criminality campaign and public safety services of the NCRPO with the active support of the community.
“These significant increases of data for latent fingerprints and criminal fingerprint cards are due to the timely reports of crime incidents from concerned and vigilant citizens of our community,” Purisima said.
“We further encourage our citizens to report any crimes that may be happening in their community, preserve the crime scene, and submit pertinent information to their police. Their support and cooperation will lead to the eventual arrest of the perpetrators and early solution of any crime incidents,” he added.