Problems in Rising Crimes in the Barangay

In the years 1995-1998 Barangay Little Baguio was voted one of the three most peaceful barangays in San Juan City. This was achieved by the barangay’s close coordination with the San Juan Police Department concerning the activities of drug pushers and users. This was followed by the close association of the community in diverting the youth from drugs and the like through activities such as inter-Barangay Basketball and local competitions, as well as close ties with the parents in the supervision of the children of the barangay. The barangay was also enjoined to report the presence of suspicious characters in the area.

However, there had been an increase in crimes from the years 1999-2007 as compared to the years when the barangay was voted as one of the most peaceful barangays of San Juan. An accompanying trend to this rise in crime was the rapid commercialization during the 90’s in the San Juan area. For example, certain bars and drinking places were established like Moksha, Bella’s, and Jack’s loft, that are found either in the entrances of the barangay or at its limits. As commercialization and enterprises increased, traffic in both commercial and private roads also began to intensify in the area of San Juan.

According to barangay records, there was a spike in certain grievous crimes such as stealing from houses (trespassing and theft) shortly before and during 2007. It is also noted that in some instances, the Barangay Tanods/patrollers were at risk because of the appearance of armed men harassing cars and stores in the neighborhood. Barangay Chairman Silvano recounted one such incident when he was the head of the Peace and Order unit. While they were patrolling at night, they found several suspicious men in the street of V. IbaƱez, attempting to open up a car. When the then Peace and Order head officer Allen Silvano interrupted them by asking “if they needed any help”, a third man wielding an armalite brusquely came out of a car waiting nearby. Upon seeing the armed man, the barangay tanods chose to withdraw since they only had a guard stick and a piece of 2x4 wood for each tanod. They promptly alerted the nearest police station about the incident. According to Chairman Silvano, it was the appropriate response because dealing with heavily armed men is not within the capacity of a barangay-level patrol; rather, such cases must be quickly referred to police authorities. Furthermore, Chairman Silvano acknowledged that it is too much to ask from barangay patrollers to risk their lives – and consequently, the subsistence of their respective families – by confronting dangerous situations which are way beyond their intended capacities. This acknowledgement confirms the surveyed literature’s claims (like Ekblom’s typology) that patrol efforts are largely designed to prevent/pre-empt crime before they happen and not to intervene in crime as they happen. Other grievous cases that were reported by individuals in the community were the cases of “Akyat Bahay”, or the trespass of individuals into the properties of the residents and the consequent theft of valuables.

The most prominent cases of theft were the stealing of cables and water meters in the barangay. This was a difficult problem since most of the cases that the perpetrator was caught, showed that these perpetrators were in fact children, or those below the legal age. The far-reaching effects of these thefts are already presented in the introduction of this paper. Needless to say, the theft of cables and water meters was not only an undeniable blemish on the security record of Little Baguio but also a city-wide problem which received widespread attention, and involved disruption of normal life. In fact, Chairman Silvano repeatedly mentioned these thefts as targets of his reform efforts.

The crime index of the year 2007 shows a crime volume of 178 which consisted of 92 index crimes and 86 non-index crimes. Index crimes are the more serious forms of crimes which include murder, homicide, physical injury, robbery, bank robbery, hijacking/highway robbery, theft and rape. In the 2007 index crimes, reports of physical injury numbered a total of 17 cases. Theft numbered a total of 75 cases for the year with a clear prevalence of cases reported in June and at the latter end of the year, namely November. Water meter and cable thefts are included in the “theft” category.


Of the 36 non-index crimes listed in the barangay classifications, these 26 non-index crimes were not reported in 2007:

Illegal Drugs
Illegal Gambling
Loose/Illegal Possession of Firearms
Violation of Municipal Ord. #24 of 1997
Carnapping
Illegal Fishing
Illegal Logging
Cattle Rustling
Other Light Threats
Unjust Vexation
Concealing True Name
Vagrancy
Falsification of Public Document
R.A. 9239 (Optical Media Act of 2003)
B.P. 22 (The Anti-bouncing Check Law)
Attempted homicide
Swindling
Coercion
Violation of R.A. 7832 (Anti-Electricity Pilferage Law)
Acts of Lasciviousness
Violation of R.A. 8484 (Illegal Possession of Access Service)
Usurpation of Authority
Obstruction of Justice
B.P. 6 (Illegal Possession of Bladed, Pointed, Blunt Weapons)
Violation of Municipal Ordinance Nos. 23 Series of 999
Slight Illegal Detention

Thought there were no reports on these 26 non-index crimes, this does not mean that these never happened in 2007. It must be noted that these figures only represent the reported cases and may not account for all the actual crimes within the barangay. The disparity between the reported and actual number of crimes may be due to the lack of convenient opportunities for the reporting of crimes, the unwillingness of victims to hurdle the opportunity cost of bothering to report, or perhaps, due to the offenders’ use of coercive means to deter the reporting of crimes.

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