PNP to explain to COA why it fell short on arresting wanted persons
The Philippine National Police (PNP) said it will explain to the Commission on Audit (COA) they did not miss their target in arresting wanted persons in 2018.
“We did not fall short on the arrest of wanted persons. In fact, (we) tripled (the arrest),” Police General Oscar Albayalde said in a press briefing Monday.
But the PNP chief admitted they “fall short” of arresting the top 10 most wanted persons.
“What the COA saw is the Top 10 Most Wanted Person and that is where the PNP fall short but on the arrest of wanted persons, our performance tripled and of course in terms of arrest of wanted persons with monetary reward, it actually increased,” he said.
Albayalde said for 2018, they arrested 48 wanted persons with monetary rewards compared to 35 arrests last 2017.
According to Police Brigadier General Omega Jireh Fidel, deputy director of the Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management, based on their parameters, all units or stations are required to arrest one person in their Top 10 most wanted list and at least 5 percent for wanted persons.
Fidel said for 2018, they only arrested 4,700 person under their Top 10 wanted list out of their 22,000 target.
“And for the service of warrant of arrest, the five percent per station, we exceeded in our target. Actually we tripled our target for 2018,” he said.
He said they are set to revise their policy as Class C or island municipalities are not maintaining Top 10 wanted person as there are no crimes being reported in their places.
“So that is our problem that’s why we will revise the policy,” Fidel added.
Fidel said this is what they will explain to COA after they finalize their data gathering and research.
“I think, just like what the DIDM said, they need to explain (the situation) for COA to understand because it appears that we are falling short on the arrest of wanted person. We did not fall short on the arrest of wanted persons, in fact triple as according to the data of DIDM,” said Albayalde.
Albayalde said they will push their police personnel to arrest more especially on the Top 10 most wanted persons.
“But of course even if we triple our arrest on wanted persons, we still need to push more all the stations for them to arrest their Top 10 most wanted persons,” he said.
Based on COA report, the PNP failed to meet their projected performance in arresting wanted criminals.
It said the PNP only met 19.37 percent of their 51.57 percent target for most wanted persons or high-value targets arrested and only 34.70 percent for arrested within 30 days upon receipt of warrant of arrest out of their 60 percent target for 2018.
Albayalde said in terms of the 30-das period for capturing suspects, police personnel are having a hard to cross boundaries once the suspect under their territorial unit hide in a different place.
“Remember once you list a wanted person on ( your) territorial unit and that person left, the territorial unit has a hard time to cross boundaries. That's why we have the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group there,” he said.
“Once the 30 days lapse, you have to return the warrant. After 10 days and we did not find the suspect we give that to the CIDG and you could just imagine how many warrants of arrest they need to serve, especially to those hiding in different places,” he added. Ella Dionisio/DMS
