Theft and road accidents still topped the crime statistics, while anti-illegal drugs campaign remains the top accomplishment of the police.
Crime volume in the first quarter this year increased to 2,202 compared to the record in the same period last year with only 1,605 incidents.
Police Senior Superintendent Jeffrey Caballes of the Bohol Police Provincial Office (BPPO) reported during the Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) meeting on April 29 that physical injury topped the crime volume with 543 incidents, most of which had been road accidents.
Caballes also reported that in comparison to the 2014 record, index crimes increased from 993 to 1,274. Non-index crimes also increased from 612 to 928.
Incidents of physical Injury increased from 375 to 543 incidents, followed by theft that also increased from 358 to 430 cases, then robbery from 148 to 168.
Carnapping reduced from 54 to 46 incidents, followed by murder from 22 to 25, homicide which also increased from 15 to 26. Incidents of rape also increased from 16 to 26 and cattle rustling from 5 to 10.
Police recorded 1,221 solved cases this year for the month of January to March and 1,286 cleared cases.
Statistics reflect that theft and physical injury remains to be the most prevalent crimes in the distribution of index crimes.
Physical Injury as broken down shows that most of these incidents are not human inflicted crimes but due to human errors or traffic related accidents, Caballes, added.
According to reports from BPPO, most of the crimes occurred on a Sunday with a total of 332 incidents in the list, next is Monday with 333, Tuesday with 315, Wednesday-313, Thursday- 283, on Friday 273 and 278 on Saturday.
Police forces conducted 38 anti-illegal drugs operations in March which resulted to the arrest of 42 persons and filing of 67 cases.
In relation to this, the Bohol Provincial Office of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) reported to the PPOC that for this year, there had been a total number of 83 cases of illegal drug filed, 39 persons detained, nine bonded, while three remained at large.
Campaign on supply reduction conducted by the police included 18 buy-bust operations, 16 implementation of search warrants during raids, 28 test buys, 26 surveillance operations and two instances of catching concerned individuals in the act.
PDEA-Bohol also reported that nine drug cases had been dismissed, one resulted ended up in acquittal, while only one led to conviction.
Police forces in the province also conducted three operations on the campaign against illegal gambling, resulting to the arrest of four persons, filing of three cases in court.
In the campaign against illegal possession of firearms, the police apprehend 11 persons, and filed 11 cases.
The police confiscated five high-powered firearms and 11 low-powered firearms during the operations.
Caballes also reported that the police conducted a special operation on April 8 in barangay Matin-ao Carmen wherein Priscillano Quirol and Danilo Dublado had been killed.
According to the police, items confiscated from Quirol included a hand grenade, a caliber .357 magnum revolver without serial number, three live ammunitions and the other three were already used, a shoulder bag containing eight live ammunitions of caliber .375 revolver, seven live ammunitions of caliber .38 firearm.
The police team also confiscated 18 small, one medium, and five large transparent cellophane sachets containing shabu and nine pieces of CO2 pellets.
Recovered from the possession of Dublado were a Black widow revolver, three live ammunitions and 10 small heat-sealed sachets containing shabu.
Caballes noted that to date, illegal drugs–especially shabu–still remains the number one problem in the province.
“The drug menace remains to be one of the potent threats on the prevailing peace and order in the province. Despite of the continues anti-illegal drug operations, several illegal personalities are yet to be neutralized,†according to Caballes. (Glydale Marie Abrot)