The National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) received a total of 1,728 messages through its newly launched hotline against abusive cops, crimes and drug-related incidents but most of them are false reports, the Metro Manila top cop bared Saturday night.
In a notice to reporters, NCRPO Director Guillermo Eleazar said the monitoring team of “Pulis na Abusado, Pusher at mga Loko, Agad I-send mo sa Team NCRPO” hotline received a total of 1,728 messages since it was launched last Friday. The covered period was from June 29 up to 3 p.m. of June 30.
However, 921 messages were found out by the monitoring team to be prank reports or spam, Eleazar said.
On the other hand, Eleazar was glad that Metro Manila residents acknowledged the benefit of the hotline as 713 messages came from citizens who sent their gratitude and appreciation to the police force.
Of the total figure, 81 messages were actual reports of crimes and abusive cops which Eleazar categorized as “actionable” messages or those subjected to police verification and deployment.
The actual reports were further broken down as follows: some 34 messages were related to illegal drug incidents while 21 were complaints against erring PNP personnel. About 12 messages from concerned citizens also reported illegal gambling activities while seven needed various police assistance.
Furthermore, six messages were reports against city ordinance violators, one reported of receiving a threat and the remaining one a public service.
Eleazar also said they have received 12 messages from concerned citizens in other provinces. He said those requests were already forwarded to the national headquarters at Camp Crame in Quezon City for endorsement to the concerned Police Regional Offices (PROs).
Eleazar appealed to the public to avoid using the NCRPO hotline 0915-889-8181 (Globe) and 0999-901-8181 (Smart) to make prank messages or false reports.
He said doing so may hamper the operations of the police in responding to reports of crimes that need actual and immediate assistance.
-Martin Sadongdong
