POLICE Regional Office (PRO) 7 Director Prudencio Tom Bañas sent a directive to his officers to exert more effort and solve old cases in their areas.
“They must push harder and solve the cases, especially sensational ones,” he said.
This is in line with the order from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Sec. Mar Roxas and Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Director General Alan Purisima.
Visit
Deputy Director General Felipe Rojas Jr., PNP’s deputy chief for administration, visited Camp Sergio Osmena last Saturday to implement the order.
“We have several high-profile killings all over the country for the last two weeks. Ito yung utos ni president na to solve these case (This is what the president told us to do),” he said in a separate interview.
Rojas said these also include the killing of Cebu-based businessman Richard King, which prompted the PNP to conduct a case conference in PRO 7.
He said the killings started last June 7 when Urbiztondo, Pangasinan Mayor Ernesto Balolong Jr. was shot and killed in Dagupan City.
During Independence Day, race car driver Enzo Pastor was gunned down by unidentified assailants in Quezon City.
On the same day, King, chief executive officer of J. King and Sons Co. Inc., was shot dead during a dinner function inside Vital-C Health Products Inc. building in Barrio Obrero, Davao City.
Help
Bañas, during the interview, said he asked the public to help the police. “We can only do so much kung motabang pud ang tawo sa atong kawsa (if people help us in our campaign),” he said.
Bañas said he is optimistic that crimes will be solved if the police would step up.
One of the examples he cited was the neutralization of a drug group in Bohol who was allegedly responsible for the fatal ambush of Ubay Police Station chief George Caña.
“They acted on it immediately. Kung talagang magtiyaga at magsipag lang tayo. Magagawa natin lahat (If we can just worker harder, we can do everything),” he said.