Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella says police should strengthen their intelligence network to bring crimes in the city down to a minimum. | Delta Dyrecka Letigio
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City’s decline in safety ratings in the 2020 Safest Cities list is a challenge for Mayor Edgardo Labella.
Figures from online database, Numbeo, showed that the city has slid down in the ranks among the safest cities in Asia and Southeast Asia.
From the 55th Safest City in Asia, Cebu City slid further down to the 66th spot, next to Pattaya in Thailand. The same trend was also observed when ranked among Southeast Asian cities.
Cebu City landed on 12th spot in terms of the Safest Cities in Southeast Asia, which is three notches below from its previous ranking in 2019 at the 9th spot.
Numbeo’s records also revealed that Cebu City’s Safety Index Rate has decreased from 53.87 in 2019 to 48.58 in 2020.
Read more: Cebu City slides down on Safest Cities List; Crime Index Rate increases – Numbeo
Labella, who has only been mayor for six months, said his short term would not be an excuse for not being able to prevent the increase of crimes in the city.
“We take it as challenge. We will work hard to fight against criminality,” said the mayor.
He said the city government and the city’s police could improve in many aspects for the peace and order of the city.
In a press conference on Monday, January 27, 2020, Labella ordered the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) to strengthen its campaign against all forms of criminalities.
He said he would order Police Colonel Engelbert Soriano, acting CCPO director, to actively monitor and apprehend criminals in the city.
Since Cebu City also led the region as the highest for index crimes such as robbery, rape, homicide and murder, as well as non-index crimes such as drug peddling and human trafficking, Labella said he would want the CCPO to strengthen its intelligence network to reduce these crimes to a minimum.
“This is a warning to those people involved in criminalities, we will never compromise. We have a very hard stance especially in this fight against illegal drugs,” said the mayor. /dbs