Mayor laments violence in his city

THE highlight of yesterday’s Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC) 7 meeting in Cebu City was the Guihulngan mayor’s revelation about the peace and order situation in the Negros Oriental city.

“Kada semana ang patay diri sa amo. Singkwenta ra ka pulis ang naa sa Guihulngan niya 107,000 ang tawo (Every week, someone is killed in our city. We have 50 police officers for a population of 107,000,” lamented Mayor Carlo Gorge Reyes.

Four days ago, Guihulngan City Councilor Paulo Ediso dela Rita Sr. was killed by unidentified assailants.

The murder came nine months after he survived an ambush by alleged members of New People’s Army (NPA), which claimed the lives of six policemen and wounded three others.

Senior Supt. Edwin Portento, director of the Negros Oriental Police Provincial Office said that they’ve already deployed personnel in the area, including members of the Special Action Forces (SAF) and the Regional Public Safety Battalion (RPSB).

Not well-founded

“We assured that we will look more in the investigations. As of the moment, there’s a strong presence of the NPA there. That’s one of the reasons,” he said.

As for Reyes’s statement that Guihulngan does not have enough police officers, Portento said that this was not well-founded.

“His (Reyes’s) city has the most police officers from the SAF, the RPSB and the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Our duties there are being carried efficiently but of course, we don’t want the deadly ambush to our cops to happen again,” Portento said.

Meanwhile, Police Regional Office 7 Director Robert Quenery said that the ideal police-to-population ratio is 1 is to 500.

However, he assured that his office will support the Guihulngan City Government and its police to solve the spate of killings in the area.

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