Tacloban City (October 8) -– Taking all forms of crime together, the Region’s total crime volume stood at 655 cases or a 19.2 percent decline compared to that of last year.

This was the assessment made during the review of the Quarterly Regional Economic Situationer conducted recently at the La Rica Hotel in Tacloban City.

The incidence of index crimes or the crimes against persons and property numbered to 443 or a decline of 8.5 percent compared to that of last year. Non-index crimes totaled 212 which is also lower by 35.2 percent compared to the previous year.

The decline in the crime incidence is complemented with a higher crime solution efficiency of 92.5 percent for the second quarter of 2006. This is higher than the 89.1 percent crime solution efficiency during the first quarter of 2006.

Most of the provinces and cities of the Region experienced a decline on crime incidence compared to the same period of 2005 except for the province of Eastern Samar and the city of Tacloban.

The crime volume in Eastern Samar stood at 74 cases, or a growth of 5.7 percent from last year’s total of 70. The crime incidence is also 5.7 percent higher than that of the first quarter of 2006.

Tacloban City recorded a higher crime incidence in the second quarter of 2006, from 60 cases in the same period last year to 94 cases this period, or an increase of 56.7 percent. In the first quarter of 2006, the crime incidence was recorded at 92 or a 2.2 increase in the second quarter of 2002.

For the City of Ormoc, the crime incidence declined by 3.1 percent from that of the same period last year. However, there is a marked 106 percent increase from the 15 cases in the first quarter of 2006 to 31 cases for the 2nd quarter of this year.