In control

LAST week, Senior Supt. Ricardo de la Paz, gave the Bacolod City police force its marching orders to intensify patrol visibility in the city following a series of car burglaries.

Police blotters reported revealed that unidentified thieves opened a vehicle and stole several items. In another case, a car parked alongside San Juan Street lost a laptop computer, worth P35 000, to these highway robbers.

For the past weeks, five vehicles parked in different areas of Bacolod lost P100 000 worth of items to thieves using the same modus operandi.

De la Paz said that while these cases are not alarming, the police should boost their intelligence efforts to monitor and neutralize the suspects.

Police investigation theorized that burglars use spotters to pinpoint cars that have valuables left in the vehicle. The suspects’ van will then be parked beside it and the window smashed to get the items.

A van? How did our BCPO know the thieves used such a vehicle? If they are dead sure of the kind of vehicle used by the thieves, maybe they also know the make or the plate number?

De la Paz added the suspects are professional thieves who know how to heist items inside a car without triggering its alarm system.

Oh? Smashing a car window will not trigger a car’s alarm system? Breaking the window is the way to go in 50 percent of all cases; the other way is forcing the lock, says the Protection and car alarm systems website.

So is Bacolod police force in control of the crime situation? Or will calls for vigilante justice do the job of the PNP?

From where I sit, the situation appears either half-empty or half-full. We can be optimistic or pessimistic on our police force’s capability to meet these criminal challenges.

De la Paz echoed PRO 6 director Police Chief Superintendent Cipriano E Querol Jr’s six-strike policy, where intelligence officers will be relieved if heinous crimes committed in their areas of responsibility remain unresolved.

Querol issued a directive ordering all unit commanders to efficiently use their Quad Staff and to make them liable/ accountable for any crime incident that might occur in their respective area of jurisdiction due to incompetence and negligence of duty.

The PNP Quad Staff composed of the PNP Directors for Operations, Intelligence, Investigation and Police-Community Relations was tasked to conduct a strategic review of the Police Integrated Patrol System and its implementation by the PNP territorial units.

I hope de la Paz and the BCPO pardon this corner’s skepticism. Last I heard, the Negros Occidental Police Office and the BCPO created task forces to arrest a series of murders with the killers using motorcycles and helmets.

However, how many arrests have been made of these motorcycle-riding criminals?

Early this year, de la Paz formed the Task Force Ceneco to go after the criminals who pulled a daring heist at the Central Negros Electric Cooperative. Well, at least, the task force managed to come up with photos of the suspects. But no arrests.

For a change, I’m looking forward to read from the local news how many heads will roll from the six-strike guillotine.

Better still, I’m looking forward to the arrest of these thieves who seem to think that the City of Smiles is really something to smile about. These criminals, not our police force, are in control and on top of the situation.

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