SCUTTLEBUTT
Daily Tribune
The claimed significant drop in focus crimes nationwide appears to be too complex to hold up.
Philippine National Police data showed a 26.76-percent drop in focus crimes, from 4,817 cases between 1 January and 14 February 2024 to 3,528 in the same period this year.
Focus crimes include theft, robbery, rape, murder, homicide, physical injury and carnapping of motorcycles and motor vehicles.
Rape saw the sharpest decline, dropping by over 50 percent, according to police records.
Year-on-year data also reflected a 7.31-percent decrease in focus crimes, from 41,717 cases in 2023 to 38,667 in 2024
Yet, on the streets, Filipinos are seeing the resurgence of a crime wave.
Filipinos’ reference to the state of law and order was the term of now International Criminal Court-detained Rodrigo Duterte whose iron-fisted approach (6,252 official drug war deaths up to 2022, with estimates up to 30,000) temporarily suppressed visible crime. His arrest last March on a crimes against humanity charge, however, loosened that grip, emboldening syndicates and rogue elements.
The Marcos administration’s softer stance — P10 billion in drug seizures since 2022 but with emphasis on rehabilitation and a humane approach — is seen as being in a vacuum.
Add a sluggish justice system, overstretched courts, and a PNP riddled with “scalawags” — 40 percent corrupt per Duterte’s 2017 estimate — and it’s a fertile ground for chaos.
The chatter about lawlessness reflects actual incidents, kidnappings, police heists and airport scams, layered with a public memory of past scandals and a current sense of drift.
It’s not just crime — it’s the perception that the state can’t or won’t stop it.
The roots of the crime upsurge lie in decades of corruption, impunity, and a snail-paced justice system that is saddled with bottlenecks that have not been addressed even by the current regime.
A glut in the supply of rice in the world market, more than the government’s rice tariffication policy, is pulling down prices based on the cold trade numbers.
Prices in Southeast Asian rice markets are plunging because of oversupply after India resumed exports of the staple grain.
According to the Thai Rice Exporters Association, white rice export prices in Thailand were $412 a ton this month, down 31 percent from $599 per ton a year ago.
This is the largest price drop in 11 years for the month of April.
From more than P60 per kilo of 5-percent broken imported rice in local markets before the maximum suggested retail price implementation, the prevailing price in Metro Manila as of 3 April ranges from P44 per kilo to P55 per kilo, with the prevailing price at P49 per kilo.
On the other hand, well-milled imported rice ranges from P43 per kilo to P46 per kilo and P35 per kilo to P45 per kilo for imported regular-milled rice.
The local regular, well-milled, and premium rice, meanwhile, ranges from P33 per kilo to P62 per kilo.
In September, New Delhi lifted export restrictions on white rice other than basmati, which had been in place since July 2023.
India last month also started allowing exports of cheaper broken rice used in processed food.
Most analysts say the international price of white rice will continue to drop.
Thailand is the world’s second-largest rice exporter by volume, according to data from the 2022-2023 season. Agriculture accounts for less than 10 percent of gross domestic product, but a lack of willingness by Thai rice farmers to grow the crop will affect food security at home and abroad.
Last month, about 300 farmers demonstrated in Bangkok, calling on the government to act on the cratering prices. “If the rice fields die, the country dies,” read a sign at the gathering.
In Vietnam, the world’s third-largest rice exporter, prices have fallen steeply as well. Export prices are currently around $400 a ton, about 40 percent lower compared with the end of 2023, according to the Vietnam Food Association.