THE Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) is ready to deploy police personnel on the streets after Mayor Michael Rama ordered it to increase round-the-clock visibility.
Rama reminded the CCPO that this was the case in previous police administrations.
The mayor first brought up the subject after a Grade 10 scholar was fatally stabbed during a robbery in Barangay Bulacao on the night of August 6, 2022.
He said police personnel should be seen on the streets along with their patrol cars to discourage criminals.
Lieutenant Colonel Maria Theresa Macatangay, CCPO information officer, said they are prepared to follow the mayor’s orders and deploy police personnel in the barangays along with members of Task Force Kasaligan and barangay tanods.
“We’re hearing the directive of the mayor loud and clear and right now our operations are creating a strategy to able to deploy the necessary number of personnel on the streets, with the existing number of personnel that we have right now,” she said.
She admitted that the CCPO is currently undermanned. She said they only have a little over 1,000 police personnel with over 800 deployed on the streets. The rest are in the office or are close to retirement.
She said that it has been years since the CCPO’s numbers have been augmented, while the city’s population has steadily grown.
Macatangay said the police to population ratio in Cebu City is 1:2,000, while the national standard is 1:500.
However, despite the lack of manpower, she said the crime volume in the city is low, attributing this to the CCPO’s non-stop drive against illegal drugs and wanted persons.
However, Macatangay said they are waiting for the Police Regional Office Central Visayas to augment the CCPO’s manpower with members of the Regional Mobile Force Battalion Central Visayas who are still training in Sibonga. (AYB, PJB)