The Rizal Police Provincial Office (Rizal PPO) on Wednesday said the number of reported crimes in the province has decreased over the past four months.
Data gathered from Rizal PPO showed that the total crime incidents from 3 July to 31 October 2025 dropped by 213 compared to the same period last year, from 3,155 to 2,942
In an interview, Rizal police provincial director P/Col. Feloteo Gonzalgo also reported the arrest of more than 1,000 most wanted persons and confiscation of illegal drugs worth P80 million during this period.
"Since July when I sat down, we were able to confiscate loose firearms through different law enforcement operations like search warrant and buy-bust operations," Gonzalgo said.
Since July, around 105 unlicensed firearms have been confiscated during various police operations in the province.
"Of course, there are firearms that were surrendered by CTGs [communist terrorist groups]. There were also surrenders by our private individuals while they are renewing their licenses," Gonzalgo said.
"We will not allow our province more chaotic because of the spread of loose firearms. So, we are continuously applying search warrants and buy-bust operations. That is our marching order to our police officers to account for all loose firearms," he added.
In the anti-criminality campaign, Gonzalgo said that all police chiefs in the province were directed to continue arresting all the criminals through the issuance of the serving of warrants of arrest.
"This Christmas, our police officers should be more careful in guarding the roads, even in places of convergence. There are a lot of theft incidents," he said.
"Early in the morning, at night, that's when they commit crimes. So, our orders to the police officers are to not sleep and to guard the roads," the Rizal police chief added.
Gonzalgo also ordered an increase in patrol operations province-wide to enhance police visibility.
"We do have monitoring. We monitor patrollers who are also connected to our livestreaming on our cellphones. We use applications like Zoom. We use different things so that we can know if they are there. And then, we always see to it that we do roll call of radios so that we can know," he said.
"And we monitor that even if it's early in the morning. I do roll call all the police officers who have radios if they are doing their mandated tasks that they are deployed during that time. So, we monitor that," the Rizal police chief added.