Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia yesterday said he will request Philippine National Police Chief Avelino Razon Jr. for an additional 200 police personnel for Bacolod City during their meeting today.

He said the PNP Chief is in Bacolod for the National Conventions of Masons which is expected to be attended by about 3,000 delegates from all over the country.

In his letter to Razon dated April 22, 2008, Leonardia said data shows that Bacolod has 8,068 more hectares in land area and 80,787 more in population than Iloilo City.

Unfortunately, he said, it is lagging behind in the personnel count of the police department, resulting in a glaring discrepancy in the ratio of police personnel per citizen between these two highly urbanized cities.

The land area of Bacolod City is 16,148 hectares while that of Iloilo City is 8,080 hectares, Leonardia said. Its population is 499,497 compared to that of Iloilo which is only 418,710.

This, he said, is based on the 2007 Census of Population conducted by the National Statistics Office.

Leonardia said that every year, the population of Bacolod grows due to transients, tourists, migrants and visitors. Hence, crimes in different forms have a tendency to also increase despite the prevention measures undertaken by the city police office, he said.

Leonardia said Bacolod was named as the “Best Place to Live” in the Philippines by the national magazine “MoneySense (March-April 2008 issue)”, proclaimed as the “Most Business-Friendly Local Government in the Philippines” by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. and adjudged by the Asian Institute of Management as one of the five “Most Competitive Mid-Sized Cities in the Philippines”.   

That is aside from other regional and national awards garnered from different entities, he said.

In all these, the city’s peace and order management played a vital role, Leonardia said. Therefore, it is imperative to maximize its police department manpower with additional personnel, he said.*CGS

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