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By LITO RULONA
Correspondent

AUTHORITIES intensified the campaign against criminals here following the release of the data showing that Cagayan de Oro is among the top five cities in the country with the most cases of index crime.

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City police director Senior Supt. Faro Antonio Olaguera said the police data serve as a challenge to the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office (Cocpo) as it fights criminals.

“We will intensify the PNP program of Operation Lambat Sibat to address and focus on index crime,” he said.

Data released by Camp Crame showed the most number of index crimes in Quezon City, Manila, Cebu, Davao, and Cagayan de Oro among chartered cities from 2010 to 2015.

Of the country’s top 15 chartered cities, Quezon City had the biggest percentage share, accounting for 17.10 percent.

The government defines index crimes as crimes which are sufficiently significant and which occur with sufficient regularity to be meaningful. Included in this category are murder, homicide, robbery, theft, carnapping, and physical injury.

In the last five years, Cagayan de Oro recorded a total of 31,345 index crimes which comprises 383 for murder (rank 7th nationwide); 165 for homicide (rank 7th nationwide); 4,713 for robbery (rank 5th nationwide); 20,100 for theft (rank 4th nationwide); 1,42 for carnapping (rank 3rd nationwide) and 4,842 for physical injury (rank 9th nationwide).

Davao City also registered the most number of murder cases at 1,032.

Other Mindanao cities included in the list are Zamboanga City (20,736); General Santos City (17,882) and Iligan City (11,074).

Olaguera explained that under his command, the crime trend has taken a nosedive compared to other key cities in the country.

“Humility aside, you can see a marked reduction or continuous slidedown or dipping of crimes although admittedly, theft and robbery remain as prevalent or commonly committed crimes in Cagayan de Oro,” he said.

He said this may not be surprising given its socio-economic dimension since poverty, unemployment, among other economic factors, remain a formidable challenge for the government.

Olaguera said due to emerging trends of criminality in the country, the PNP leadership conceptualized the institutionalization of a crime reduction strategy called Oplan Lambat-Sibat to address seven crimes–murder, homicide, physical injury, robbery, theft, carnapping and motornapping. He said it is a system that uses crime data management and interpretation which helps the police in the strategic deployment of police personnel in densely populated areas.

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