Crime volume during the first 56 days of the President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is lower compared to the same period of the previous administrations.

During the Palace briefing on Wednesday, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief General Rodolfo Azurin said crime volume from July 1 to August 25 this year is lower than the crime volume in the same period of 2010 and 2016.

"In the first 56 days, the crime volume in the same period last year was 35, 237, considering that we are in pandemic and supposedly the crime (volume) should be lesser and yet compared to the same period of this year when we only recorded a crime volume of 29,630," he said.

"We had 35,237 cases last year compared to now that we are already in the new normal... We already have face-to-face and the resumption of cases," he added.

Azurin said the decrease in crime volume shows improvement of the PNP's capability in these matters.

"You can see from our data the increase in our crime clearance by 94.65 percent and crime solution efficiency by 82.28 percent from 2010 up to 2022," he said.

However, Azurin mentioned that he directed all district directors of the PNP to coordinate with the local barangay officials as the criminal incidents are expected to increase during "ber" months (from September to December).

"We always anticipate the increase of crime during "ber months" that's why I ordered our police not only in the NCR, to ensure police presence. We will be deploying our mobile forces even to the point of deploying our SAF, our policemen should be all over the areas specially in the crime prone areas," he said.

"I have directed all of our district directors to inform all the barangays about the crime affectation of their barangay so we would know where to deploy our forces and the intervention that we should do as well as the assistance that we could provide to the barangay to fight criminality in the community," he added. Robina Asido/DMS