Attacks on Duterte's anti-crime record are "mythological"

Mr. Duterte’s record on crime has been attacked as a “myth” by Mr. Roxas, who uses the statistics reported by the Philippine National Police to undermine Mr. Duterte’s crime-fighting. In the PNP report, which are not broken down by year or between index (actual) crimes and non-index, Davao leads with the most number of murders among five major cities, at 1,032 (table below). Source is Rappler.

However, it is simply common sense that that places with higher the population experience more crimes. What is more important is therefore the crime rate, or the number of crimes committed per thousand population, not the raw number of crimes. After adjusting for population, Davao never ranks first in any crime category. It is tied with Quezon City in the most number of “5s”, particularly in important categories of homicide, robbery and carnapping; it is number-2 in murder rates.

But the crime statistics themselves should be taken with caution because Mr. Roxas is the former Secretary of the Interior and Local Government, with authority over the police. When Mr. Roxas uses these crime statistics to attack his political opponent, he is really using the statistics prepared by people under his control to attack his political opponents. The fact that Mr. Roxas’s DILG presented a special award to Mr. Duterte for achievements in peace and order in 2015, just for Mr. Roxas to attack Mr. Duterte’s anti-crime record six months later, is enough evidence that Mr. Roxas’s words and actions are just politics—nothing personal, neither true.