The city police will implement a zoning strategy for more focused law enforcement operations.
Lt. Clarizel Perez, the spokesperson of the city police office, said Wednesday they will divide the city into three “sectoral areas of responsibility”.
She said the plan was devised by Col. Gilberto Tuzon, the city police director, to address the rising number of shootings, which has reached 41 since January.
She added that the three zones will be supervised by the deputy city police director for administration, deputy city police director for operations, and the commander of the city mobile force battalion.
“They will be tasked to lead the operations in these areas and focus more on the unsolved cases,” Perez said in an interview over local television show “Morning Hataw.”
She said the city’s eight police stations in strategic areas within the 26 barangays will be under the proposed zones.
Of the 41 shootings, mostly perpetrated by motorcycle-riding suspects, she said 22 are considered solved, with eight cases filed in local courts.
Most of the cases involved personal circumstances and grudges while some were linked to illegal drugs.
She said the investigation on six of the 19 unsolved cases has made significant progress recently and could lead to the filing of charges against the suspects in the coming days.
The investigators of the cases are monitoring their progress and collecting vital information from possible witnesses and family members, as well as possible footage captured by closed-circuit television cameras.
To complement these efforts, Perez said their units have expanded the “Oplan Katok” or house-to-house checks with identified gun owners in the city.
She said the move is aimed to determine the status of their registered firearms, especially if they have valid registration or licenses, and are still in their possession or already sold to other people.
“Those with expired licenses are considered as loose firearms so we’re tracking them as there is a possibility that they can be used in criminal activities,” she added.
Perez said several gun owners have surrendered them voluntarily for custody or safekeeping pending the processing of their licenses.
Source: Philippines News Agency
