The Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office (NOCPPO) has stepped up its measures to address the rampant robbery cases in the province.
Lt. Judesses Catalogo, NOCPPO public information officer, said Thursday, September 8, that 43 robbery cases were reported in August alone, the most number of incidents this year.
Only 13 of these cases are still under investigation because the victims are not willing to cooperate with the police, he said.
He said that it was during the dead season in the sugar industry when criminality increased.
Personnel of delivery vans, who were collecting sales in sari-sari stores, were mostly the victims, he said.
The robbery incidents led NOCPPO to form the Joint Anti-Bank Robbery Action Committee, which tapped financial institutions, bankers, delivery van owners, and panwshops, to help prevent the rise of these cases.
Catalogo also said that police were deployed in strategic areas to prevent robbery incidents.*