Murder cases up 2% from January to October

LIPA CITY — A total of 4,868 murder cases were reported from January to October this year, or an increase of two percent from the 4,780 documented cases during the same period last year, Sen. Loren Legarda said, citing police statistics.

The figures meant an average of 16 murder cases a day or one every 90 minutes during the 10-month period, according to Legarda, an official of the Citizens’ DrugWatch, an anti-crime monitoring group.

Legarda made the disclosure not long after two violent and highly publicized murder cases gripped the country.

The Nov. 7 killing of popular actress Nida Blanca continues to hog the headlines. So has the Nov. 20 ambush-slaying of the newly appointed public relations director of the Commission on Elections, Velma Cinco.

Murder is a capital offense punishable by life imprisonment or execution by lethal injection under the Death Penalty Law.

Murder convicts now comprise almost 25 percent of the 1,874 inmates on death row (as of end-October).

Legarda, the Senate majority leader, said she would support a congressional inquiry into the impact of capital punishment on the country’s peace and order problem, particularly on heinous crimes such as murder, rape and illegal drug trafficking.

Anti-crime groups claim that the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1994 was party responsible for the sustained decline in murder cases.

Murder cases dropped by an annual average of three percent from 1991 to 2000. A total of 5,735 cases were reported last year.