The country’s total crime volume dropped by 49.43 percent from 5,104 cases in January 2020 to 2,581 cases in January this year, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said on Monday.

Maj. Gen. Marni Marcos, director of the Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management (DIDM), attributed the significant decline in the eight focus crimes to the implementation of the community quarantine across the country amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.

“The decrease of eight focus crime is due to restriction to the public, enhanced managing police operations (empo),” Marcos said in press briefing at Camp Crame.

He said the eight focus crimes include murder, homicide, physical injury, robbery, theft, vehicle theft, motorcycle theft, and rape.

Index crimes are serious crimes such as murder, homicide, physical injury, robbery, rape, theft, and carjacking, while the non-index crimes are violations of local ordinances and laws and vehicular accidents.

Based on the DIDM data, the crime clearance efficiency for January 2021 was at 88.86 percent while it has 94.85 percent in 2020 with a variance decrease of 5.99 percent. The crime solution efficiency in 2021 of 78.90 percent is quite similar compared to the 78.79 percent in 2020 with 0.11 variance increase.

Marcos said the continuous monitoring and follow up of cases, and strategies by the investigators have contributed to improving crime clearance and solution efficiencies.

“Most of the incidents are under investigation, most of the cases for the current year are still under investigation and cases of the previous year are mostly solved because of the follow-ups and updates done over time,” Marcos said.