Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Oscar Albayalde said thousands of violators of city ordinances were arrested by police in Metro Manila in five days.

“What we have in National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) ( is) implementation of ordinances. A total of 2,981 from June 13 to June 18 2018. That is only for just a few days, five days of implementation,” he said.

“Those that were arrested were because of smoking in public, illegal vendors, half naked in public, drinking in public places or streets, urinating in public place, illegal barker, littering, and breach of peace, obstruction, the riding in tandem and traffic code violations and concealment of deadly weapons,” he added.

Albayalde emphasized those who were arrested violated city ordinance. It does not include vagrancy, he added.

“There is no vagrancy here, what you have said is right the vagrancy was decriminalized since 2012, so we are no arrested because of vagrancy,” he said.

“If you are standing by, you really have a problem. If not, I don’t think the police will just pick you up and arrest you. We have given specific instructions to our commanders on the ground on this and

the regional directors of course to use their wisdom and discretion,” he added.

Albayalde said the PNP is set to release guidelines for the arrest of the city ordinance violators within the week.

“That is why the director of the CIDG ( Criminal Investigation and Detection Group) is here for us to see, to consolidate all the city ordinances so what we will be implementing are the different city ordinances existing in the different provinces and cities,” he said.

“Within the week (we will release the guidelines) after we consolidate, because we are asking the different regions to submit their accomplishments here. So far it is just the NCR who have complied,” he added.

Albayalde said those who feel that their rights were violated because of the implementation of the city ordinances can file a complaint.

“Remember, peace and order is everybody’s right. This is the basic right of every human being, to live in peace… If they think that their right were abused then they can always file a complaint,” he said.

“What's important here is we do our law enforcement activities, we enforce the law without fear or favor and in paramount consideration of human rights, that is what we said to our policemen and I think they understand that especially the chief of police,” he added. Robina Asido/DMS