PNP: Rise in crime due to reporting system, not failure of cops

Blame the rise in criminality nationwide on the new crime reporting system of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and not on the failure of the police to thwart criminality.

Deputy Director General Alan Purisima, chief of the PNP Directorial Staff, said total crime volume in the country posted a sevenfold increase in 2009 after the PNP Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management (DIDM) began implementing a “blotter-based” reporting of criminal incidents in police stations.

“Before that, the crime volume in the country was probably one of the lowest (in the world) because we were not reporting the crimes correctly as they happened,” Purisima told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

“For me, the statistics don’t necessarily reflect the real picture. The increase in the number of reported crimes may also mean that the people now trust the police more because they are coming forward to seek our help,” he said.

From a total of 66,846 crimes recorded nationwide in 2008, the total crime volume went up to 498,596 the following year when then PNP Director General Jesus Verzosa approved the new crime reporting system called the Unit Crime Periodic Report.

Purisima, widely touted to be the successor of PNP Director General Nicanor Bartolome, said total reported crimes in Metro Manila during that same period were 59,682, or an increase of more than 300 percent from 2008.

Before 2009, he said, reported crime solution efficiency was over 90 percent.

“The old system of subjective reporting was actually more problematic because we were not able to deploy our men appropriately. We also lost the trust of the communities we served,” he said.

When Purisima was designated chief of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) in 2010, he ordered all police units in Metro Manila to report all kinds of crime on the police blotter.

“We also conducted an audit of the police blotters to check if our personnel were complying. True enough, we were able to have a more accurate picture of crime incidence in Metro Manila,” he said.

Purisima said this method of crime reporting helped him and his police commanders come up with a “crime map” which illustrated the prevailing types of crimes in a certain area. –Marlon Ramos, Philippine Daily Inquirer