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Thursday, October 30, 2003
Lapu chief has to go: Calimlim
By Rene H. Martel
HE HAS nothing personal against Supt. Paquito Belandres but Cebu Police Provincial Office (CPPO) Director Maximo Calimlim said the Lapu-Lapu City police chief should quit his post.
That after Belandres, who served as chief of police since February 2002, proved to be a “loser due to his ineffective, inefficient management and supervision of the police force.”
Up to mayor
The fate lies in the hands of Mayor Arturo Radaza, whom Calimlim said he briefed on the city’s peace and order situation.
The relief of Belandres has to have the concurrence of Radaza, who told Calimlim that he would study it after the provincial director recommended that Belandres should be sacked early this year.
Calimlim said a comparison made of the crime volume from January to May this year and June to September this year showed that the city police’s crime solution efficiency (CSE) sank to a new low.
“I have nothing against Belandres. But what we are talking about here is for the people’s good. If it were up to me, I would have done it a long time ago,” he said in Tagalog, when asked why it took him some time to replace Belandres.
Lapu-Lapu City police’s CSE from January to May is 77.78 percent while its CSE from June to August is 66.39 percent.
Calimlim’s peace and order situation report did not have the CSE for September so it was not included in the calculation of the CSE average.
CSE is the percentage of the number of crimes solved compared with the number of crimes in a place.
A look at Lapu-Lapu City’s crime volume from June to September, though, showed an increasing trend in the number of crimes.
That happened despite the activation of four police precincts which, Calimlim said, was the “most logical decision to address the problem of rising crime incidents.”
He added the “success or failure of the (precincts’) activation depends on who controls, who supervises, who directs, who manages the whole police force.”
Calimlim already submitted the names of five police officers last Tuesday as likely replacements of Belandres.
Possibles
He refused to name the other three, but mentioned current Bogo police chief William Valencia and Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Police Community Relations Division chief Louie Oppus as among those in the list.
Lapu-Lapu City police currently has 11 police non-commissioned officers (PNCOs, or those with ranks from PO1 to SPO4) and 12 NCOs to attend to 225,739 people.
Calimlim said the city has enough policemen compared to Toledo City, which has a population of 141,174 yet only has a police force of around 50 personnel.
At least 14 more from the Regional Mobile Group (RMG) 7 will also be deployed to Lapu-Lapu City.
Yet, Calimlim said the crime situation in the city has not improved with Belandres as chief of police.
Recent statistics showed that in less than a month, at least nine robberies or one every other day has occurred in the city.
(October 30, 2003 issue)
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