Duterte orders PNP to look into spike on riding-in-tandem holdups

President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the Philippine National Police to make a report on robbery incidents involving riding-in-tandem perpetrators.

During his Talk to the People that aired on Tuesday, Duterte told PNP chief Police Lieutenant General Dionardo Carlos the supposed spike in crimes involving motorcycle-riding robbers.

“There is a spike of holdups na riding-in-tandem. Somebody report it to me so we can look into this problem,” he said.

Responding to the President, Carlos said the PNP will make a report on the matter.

This December, two students who were shooting Tiktok videos on a sidewalk in Caloocan City lost their mobile phones to motorcycle-riding thieves.

“Natrauma po ako, hinawakan po ako dito tapos dahan dahan pong kinuha yung cellphone ko,” one of the victims said in Bam Alegre’s “24 Oras” report.

(I was traumatized. He held me and then slowly took my cellphone)

Earlier, Senator Richard Gordon slammed the Land Transportation Office over the non-implementation of Republic Act 11235 or the Motorcycle Crime Prevention Act, which aims “to protect the public, and to have a full arsenal against criminals using motorcycles.”

“Because of the dismal failure of the Land Transportation Office to implement RA 11235, more people are still getting killed by criminals in riding-in-tandem incidents. Impunity, not accountability, reigns,” he said.—AOL, GMA News