PRO-7 chief: We’ll keep close watch for PDEA-7 impostor agents-robbers

Police Brigadier General Albert Ignatius Ferro, director of Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), inspects Barangay Basak San Nicolas in Cebu City in this June 29, 2020 photo.

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) will help in monitoring reports about robbers who introduce themselves as Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Central Visayas (PDEA-7) agents before robbing their victims.

Police Brigadier General Albert Ignatius Ferro, director of PRO-7, told reporters this Friday, September 18, 2020, that his personnel were alerted about the modus of this robbery gang who were recently reported by PDEA-7 after the agency received reports from victims of these robbers.

Read: PDEA-7 warns of impostor agents-cum-robbers

“That kind of information — it’s alarming, but we will help PDEA in checking this particular information and we will bring to justice those who were involved. And we will intensify our anti-criminality (drive) considering that this month is the start of the ‘Ber’ months,” said Ferro.

However, Ferro said that they had yet to confirm if there were already the presence of robbery gangs in the region because based on their crime statistics — the eight focus crimes including murder, homicide, physical injury, rape, robbery, theft, and carnapping had continued to drop by 50 percent in the whole region.

“Actually the numbers of robbery, theft, are not that high yet because of the extensive QCPs (Quarantine Control points), extensive checkpoints. But we will check and try to determine if the level of alarm on robbery and theft cases here in Sugbo. But on our records, we are still doing good, based on our statistics,” said Ferro.

Ferro saod that in the usualy 29 crimes a day before COVID-19, the region now only records about 13 crimes a day even after the announcement of modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).

For the meantime, Ferro said that the police would remain vigilant especially about the reported incident of PDEA-7 impostor-robbers./dbs