Safer than ever? Headlines disagree
Hope isn’t enough because we need the reality to match the numbers. We need the streets to actually feel safe, not look safe on paper and words.
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Hope isn’t enough because we need the reality to match the numbers. We need the streets to actually feel safe, not look safe on paper and words.
I remember reading DILG Secretary Jonvic Remulla’s statement back in May. “We are safer than we’ve ever been, and it will get better,” he asserted with apparent genuine confidence.
The crime rate has dropped by as much as 80 percent since 2014. The anti-drug campaign, he said, was succeeding without the killings that once dominated the headlines, adding that local policies like restricting public drinking were helping too.
On paper, it sounded like a victory worth celebrating. We all wanted to believe it. But then July happened. August is here — and many can’t seem to shake the feeling that something doesn’t quite add up.
I’ve been reading up on this recently, and one thing that stands out is the disconnect between the numbers and people’s day-to-day experiences, which has laid bare haunting questions that are hard to ignore.
On 5 July, Arjay Yumul (you might know him as “Katotzkie Vlog” online), who had full phocomelia — a condition that left him without arms and legs — was killed in a gang attack in Bamban, Tarlac. The National Council on Disability Affairs called it an attack on the dignity of persons with disabilities. A man who already faced unimaginable challenges just to exist in this world was killed.
In early July, a couple in Baras, Rizal, were stabbed to death in their home by thieves who stole watches and an iPhone worth P90,000.
On 9 July, motorcycle rider Ren Ren de Laviga was shot dead by his passenger in Carmona, Cavite who then extorted his grieving family.
Also in July, motorcycle taxi driver Fabio Norberte Jr. was stabbed to death by his passenger in Caloocan City, making an orphan of his autistic three-year-old son whose mother had died when he was only a month old.
On 12 July, three masked men shot and killed Dr. Kent Carpenter, a 73-year-old American marine scientist, in Sibulan, Negros Oriental. They sexually assaulted his partner.
Carpenter loved the Philippines enough to spend his life studying our waters and identify the Verde Island Passage as the Center of Marine Shore Fish Biodiversity. As an adjunct professor at Silliman University, he contributed so much to our understanding of marine life. The marine community mourned his loss.
The families of the aforementioned victims received aid, but no amount of money will restore a son, brother, or future — especially for Norberte’s son, whose father dreamed of working abroad to pay for his autism treatment.
It is also painful for every Filipino who wonders if we’ve truly made progress.
When Secretary Remulla said we’re “safer than we’ve ever been,” what exactly was he measuring?
I know crime statistics are complicated. I know they track reported incidents, not fear. I know they don’t capture the quality of life in communities where people double check their locks at night.
The thing about statistics is they don’t get stabbed or shot. They don’t leave behind a 3-year-old with autism who will grow up wondering why his father never came home. The gap between what the data says and what families experience is real and wide.
Maybe the government is right on a macro level. But try telling that to the families of Arjay and of the couple in Baras, to Fabio’s son who will never see his father again, to the marine scientist’s partner who now carries a trauma that no statistic can heal.
Secretary Remulla promised that “it will get better.” I genuinely hope he’s right. But “better” doesn’t mean “done.” It doesn’t mean we stop caring about the ones who fall through the cracks or treat these tragedies as isolated incidents that don’t matter just because the overall trend looks good.
For the families mourning right now, there is no “overall trend.” There’s only the void, the empty chair, and the shattered dreams. That’s the part that is heartbreaking.
Progress may be quantified, but safety is not a number — it is the lived reality of those who wake, work, and love without the shadow of violence, and it is felt in the pulse of a nation that protects its own.
That’s the real measure, and we still have a long way to go. The statistics may say we’re safer, but the headlines scream something else entirely.
I don’t want to be a pessimist and confuse statistics with safety because the two are not always the same. Remember that behind every statistic is a human being, a family and a stolen future.
We’re all hoping for a safer Philippines. Hope isn’t enough because we need the reality to match the numbers. We need the streets to actually feel safe, not look safe on paper and words.
Until then, we’ll keep locking our doors, looking over our shoulders, and wondering when the statistics will finally match the truth.
Email: gg_agtay@yahoo.com
