The number of focused crimes in Metro Manila was lower compared to last year, National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) Regional Director Maj. Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez, Jr. said Tuesday.

Focus crimes are murder, homicide, physical injury, rape, theft, robbery, carnapping of vehicles and carnapping of motorcycles.

In a press briefing, Nartatez said that since he took over as NCRPO regional director last year, the number of focus crimes reduced from 15 to 20 per day in 2023 to 10 per day this year.

“We have our program, particularly, the enhanced managing police operations in narrowing these type of crimes. This includes management of events and activities, security and vital installations, morale and welfare of our personnel, management of our resources, plus our integrity monitoring on all police and other parts of the government. This also includes the management of the police operation,” Nartatez said.

The summary is we have a very peaceful community here in the National Capital Region,” he added.

Nartatez said the most challenging part of maintaining peace in Metro Manila was cleansing the ranks.

“In maintaining (peace), the most challenging thing for me is not the occurrence of focus crimes, it is how I manage to clean the organization. I have to start with cleansing my ranks,” Nartatez said.

“When I assumed as the director of NCR, I was surprised a chief of police was involved in the usage of illegal drugs. So the number one thing I looked into was how are we going to implement our anti-drug campaign. This anti-drug campaign, as I said earlier, is the denominator of our index crime. And so we should be hard-hitting and I should check on my personnel,” he said.

Nartatez said that since assuming his post, around 1,000 personnel were dismissed, 1,300 were penalized through demotion and suspension; and 20 were being investigated, with certain personnel going through court proceedings. Jaspearl Tan/DMS