Arya News - Before President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. again addresses the country’s security situation in his fifth State of the Nation Address (Sona) on July 27, here is a look at the commitments he made in his previous report to the Filipino people and what has happened since:
MANILA – “We are safer than we’ve ever been. And it will get better.”
Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla made the statement at the Kapihan ng Samahang Plaridel forum in May, citing an 80 percent decline in crime rates nationwide since 2014.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) has likewise reported fewer crimes, particularly since the launch of “Safer Cities,” a Department of the Interior and Local Government initiative aimed at more strictly enforcing bans on public drinking and curfews for minors.
Incidents of murder, homicide, physical injury, rape, robbery, theft and carnapping fell by an average of 20.6 percent from the Jan. 6-April 5 period to April 6-July 4, after “Safer Cities” began, according to the PNP.
Yet high-profile cases — including fatal shootings at a Parañaque City condominium in March and a Tacloban City school in June, as well as the recent stabbings of motorcycle taxi riders in Caloocan City and Cavite — continue to fuel concerns about public safety.
“Nakikita natin yung mga sensational na nangyayari,” PNP public information chief Col. Allen Rae Co told reporters on July 17. “Pero iyong statistics natin talaga, pababa ‘yong krimen.”
(We see sensational cases happening. But our statistics show that crime is going down.)
“Mas ligtas ang Pilipinas ngayon as compared to the previous periods. Naiintindihan natin na this is a small consolation kung hindi ito ‘yong ating nararamdaman,” he added.
(The Philippines is safer now compared with previous periods. We understand that this is small consolation if people do not feel it.)
Before President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. again addresses the country’s security situation in his fifth State of the Nation Address (Sona) on July 27, here is a look at the commitments he made in his previous report to the Filipino people and what has happened since:
5-minute police response
In the 2025 Sona, Marcos said the national police force would respond to calls for assistance within five minutes, reinforcing a push initiated by then-PNP chief Police Gen. Nicolas Torre III.
No publicly available data immediately show how quickly the PNP has responded to crime incidents since Marcos issued the directive.
Torre, however, previously relieved at least eight Metro Manila police chiefs and two provincial police chiefs for failing to meet the five-minute target.
To standardize police response times, Torre relied heavily on the 911 emergency call system under the DILG.
He was removed from his post amid a dispute with the National Police Commission (Napolcom) last August and was replaced by Police Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr.
The DILG and the PNP have since continued to push for faster police responses through the 911 system.
In a statement in June, the DILG said the revamped system had an efficiency rate of 97.23 percent so far in 2026, up from 48.33 percent in 2024 and 70.71 percent in 2025.
Also in June, the department opened 911 satellite command centers in the Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, Western Visayas and Eastern Visayas.
These were added to the national command center in Metro Manila and a regional command center in Cebu.
READ: PNP reports lower crime rate after 3 months of ‘Safer Cities’ initiative
Sabungeros case
In 2025, the disappearance of at least 34 cockfighting aficionados, or sabungeros, returned to public attention after whistleblower Julie Patidongan, also known as Totoy or Dondon, resurfaced and named gambling tycoon Atong Ang as the mastermind behind the reported abductions.
The renewed attention came as Marcos delivered his fourth Sona last year, during which he vowed to pursue everyone accountable for the disappearances.
In January, courts in Laguna and Batangas ordered law enforcement authorities to arrest Ang over the reported kidnappings, but he has since evaded arrest.
Remulla said the PNP nearly caught Ang at a residence he was leasing in Cavite, but he had slipped away a day before police arrived.
Ang was supposedly moving around Calabarzon every other day to avoid detection.
The DILG has since offered a P20 million reward for his capture.
Meanwhile, 20 of Ang’s co-accused have been taken into government custody.
They include 11 police officers against whom Napolcom filed administrative cases. The officers were immediately dismissed from the service after they were taken into custody.
Ang and the police officers were charged with kidnapping with homicide and serious illegal detention.
Following their dismissal, Napolcom Commissioner Rafael Calinisan told the Inquirer that the commission was open to filing more administrative cases against other police officers proven to have been involved in the sabungeros case.
Remulla also previously claimed that at least four former police generals were being investigated for links to Ang, but he maintained that no active PNP personnel were helping the gambling tycoon.
However, the PNP relieved two police officials in May for allegedly facilitating meetings between complainants in the case and the implicated police officers detained at the custodial facility in Camp Crame.
Ang’s camp has denied involvement in the reported kidnappings and alleged that Patidongan tried to extort him by threatening to implicate him in the case.
In June, the PNP Forensic Group reported that authorities searching Taal Lake in Batangas for the missing sabungeros’ remains recovered 2,000 bones.
Of those, 1,400 were human, but none had been identified.
Patidongan claimed that the sabungeros were killed and their remains thrown into the lake.
READ: Atong Ang manhunt: PNP warns public against helping him
Anti-drug campaign
Last year, Marcos said three years under his administration had yielded the same amount of confiscated illegal drugs as the entirety of President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration.
According to the most recent publicly available data from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the Marcos administration confiscated at least P121.25 billion worth of illegal drugs from July 1, 2022, to May 31, 2026.
Among the major developments in the government’s anti-drug campaign was the discovery of a suspected clandestine drug laboratory at a warehouse in a Valenzuela City industrial park in March.
The operation led to the confiscation of P6.6 billion worth of suspected illegal drugs.
Another major drug haul was the interception of P6 billion worth of suspected shabu, or crystal methamphetamine, in Occidental Mindoro, also in March.
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) personnel found the suspected shabu on a speedboat that ran aground in Paluan town.
The discovery led to the arrest of two Chinese nationals and two Filipinos who allegedly came to look for them.
Remulla previously said a foreign syndicate had offloaded the contraband from a larger ship onto smaller boats, but authorities have yet to track down those responsible.
The developments prompted Remulla to note that the street price of shabu had risen from P3,800 per gram in 2022 to P7,000 per gram in 2026.
He claimed the increase indicated a decline in supply.
“We are slowly but surely winning the drug war,” Remulla said at a press briefing after the AFP turned over the drugs confiscated in the Occidental Mindoro operation to the DILG.
“We are going after the big fish. Hindi tayo naghahanap ng nagtitinda ng fish ball. Hindi tayo naghahanap ng pedicab driver. Hindi tayo naghahanap ng ordinaryong manggagawa na may dalang isang gramo ng shabu,” he said, in an apparent reference to criticism that the Duterte administration’s drug war targeted poor and small-time suspects.
(We are going after the big fish. We are not looking for the fish ball vendor. We are not looking for the pedicab driver. We are not looking for the ordinary worker carrying a gram of shabu.)
“Hinahanap natin yung mga big time. Kinukuha natin yung ganoong klaseng seizure,” he added.
(We are looking for big-time targets. We are pursuing seizures of that scale.)
The interior secretary also said that the Marcos administration’s anti-drug campaign “does not kill people,” contrasting it with the bloody drug war under Duterte.
However, at least 1,280 drug-related killings were reported under Marcos as of July 7, 2026, according to figures from the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center’s “Project Dahas.”
Government estimates placed the death toll from Duterte’s drug war at 6,000, while human rights groups have said the number could be as high as 30,000.
READ: Drug war killings continue from Duterte to Marcos – watchdogs
Campaign vs rebels
In his Sona last year, Marcos said the government would continue its campaign against the communist insurgency and provide livelihood opportunities for former rebels.
From Jan. 1 through July 9, 2026, at least 720 alleged members and supporters of the New People’s Army (NPA) surrendered to the government, AFP spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla said at a press briefing.
The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
During the same period, 32 alleged NPA members and supporters were arrested and 60 were killed in military operations nationwide.
For comparison, at least 1,798 alleged NPA members and supporters surrendered, 93 were arrested and 127 were killed in 2025.
Under the government’s Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program, former rebels and violent extremists may receive P15,000 in immediate assistance, P50,000 in livelihood assistance and corresponding remuneration for turning over firearms, according to the DILG.
The department has yet to release information on the program’s accomplishments so far in 2026.
The latest available figures showed that it facilitated the release of P362.9 million in total aid to 4,261 former rebels and violent extremists from July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2025.
A flash point in the government’s counterinsurgency campaign came in April, when a military operation in Toboso, Negros Occidental, killed 19 people.
The AFP maintained that the operation was intelligence-driven and claimed that all 19 people killed were combatants.
The CPP, however, said only 10 were NPA members and that the other nine were civilians.
They included University of the Philippines student leaders Alyssa Alano, 22, and Maureen Keil Santuyo, 24; community journalist RJ Nichole Ledesma, 30; two Filipino American organizers; and two minors.
The incident prompted human rights groups and former government negotiators to call for the resumption of peace talks with communist rebels.
Your subscription has been successful.
Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro dismissed the proposal, saying the insurgents were “the ones disturbing the peace … [and] committing crimes.”
“To call for peace talks is to elevate the morality of their cause to something legitimate, which I cannot accept,” Teodoro said.