At least 42 persons with pending arrest warrants were rounded up by the personnel of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) yesterday morning.
The arrests were done as part of CCPO’s warrant day, said Supt. Artemio Ricabo, deputy chief for administration.
Ricabo said 853 warrant of arrests have accumulated through the years at the CCPO warrants section.
“This is a simultaneous operation in serving warrants with the help of all our police stations,” Ricabo told reporters in a press briefing yesterday.
Most of the warrants were issued for cases like frustrated murder, estafa, gambling, illegal possession of firearms, illegal recruitment and theft.
Yesterday morning, city police were able to serve at least 12 of the pending warrants of arrest.
Ricabo said some of the warrants were served to more than one person, bringing the total number of arrested individuals to 42 as of yesterday afternoon.
Ricabo said the arrests will continue until all the remaining warrants will be served.
“If the case has been dismissed in court, we will ask a formal communication from the court for their release,” he said.
The simultaneous operation is part of the lambat sibat program, an anti-criminality campaign of the Philippine National Police for an intensified fight against criminal elements. Dubbed as the “warrant day,” the efforts of the CCPO will be replicated by police counterparts from the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO).
For CPPO, 1,000 pending warrants need to be implemented.